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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 





OlEO IN The seb 
COU.LOUIS BELL «,«R( 
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«'1-UAM «. LOCKE J0S€ 



THE 

DEDICATORY PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



Soldiers'. Monument 



AT 



CHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE 
August 22, 1904 




COMPILED AND EDITED BY 

GEORGE C. HAZELTON 

M C M V 



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Copyright, igo5, by 
George C. Hazelton 



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CONTENTS 



Introduction . 
Description of Monument 

(North Side) 

(East Side) 

(South Side) 

(West Side) 
Line of March 

Colonel George A. Hosley (Opening Welcome) 
Rev. Chester J. Wilcomb (Prayer) . 
Hon. George C. Hazelton (Oration of the Day) 
George Sherman West (Acceptance of Monument) 
Colonel Henry O. Kent (Dedicatory Exercises) 
Hon. John C. Linehan (Address) 
Hon. Henry E. Burnham (Address) 
Hon. Henry F. Hollis (Address) 
James Tanner (Address) . 
Hon. Cyrus A. Sulloway (Address) 
Mrs. Maria E. Densmore (Address) 
Mrs. Louise S. Johnson (Address) . 
Hon. Gerry W. Hazelton (Closing Address) 



FACE 

I 

21 
22 

23 

24 

26 
29 

33 

67 
69 

73 

77 

85 

91 

107 

113 

117 

123 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Monument 

Brigadier-General Louis Bell 

Bell Post No. 74 

Officers of Bell Women's Relief Corps No. 



Cyrus F. Marston 

Colonel George A. Hosley 

Rev. Chester J. Wilcomb . 

Hon. George C. Hazelton 

Colonel Henry O. Kent . 

Hon. John C. Linehan 

Hon. Henry E. Burnham . 

Hon. Henry F. Hollis 

James Tanner 

Hon. Cyrus A. Sulloway . 

Mrs. Maria E. Densmore . 

Mrs. Louise S. Johnson 

G. A. R. Club of Massachusetts 

Hon. Gerry W. Hazelton , 

Glimpse of Chester Street . 



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INTRODUCTION 

The object of this little volume would not be 
realized without some reference to the spirit of 
patriotism and local pride which prompted the citi- 
zens and natives of Chester to take steps to secure 
the monument, which was so happily dedicated on 
the 22d of August, 1904. 

Such monuments do not build themselves. 

It required forty years to raise the funds to erect 
the Washington Monument at the Nation's capital. 
It was not until fifty years after the battle was fought 
that the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument was 
laid, and it was not until eighteen years later that 
they laid the capstone and dedicated to the heroes 
of the American Revolution the massive shaft itself. 

All such enterprises, no matter how praise- 
worthy, have to be taken in hand in the first instance 
by a few public-spirited citizens, and frequently it 
happens that those who, at first, question the pos- 
sibility of success become, later on, the most en- 
thusiastic champions of the enterprise, willing and 

anxious to aid in its consummation. 

1 



2 Chester Monument 

The Grand Army organizations, which sprang 
into being at the close of the War of 1861, have in- 
fluenced the erection of soldiers' monuments in 
many of the cities and towns of the Northern States 
— have been and still are engaged in marking with 
enduring memorials the battle-fields where they 
fought for the maintenance of the Union, and in 
aiding the pen of History in preserving a record 
of deeds of valor and sublime heroism that would 
otherwise be lost in oblivion. 

It was a fitting sequel, therefore, that the con- 
ception of the Chester Monument should originate 
in the councils of the Grand Army Post located in 
that town. 

The story is a simple one, but it shows how well 
the project was managed from beginning to end, 
and the character of the promoters. 

" Although a soldiers' monument in old Ches- 
ter," says Cyrus F. Marston in a letter to the editor, 
" had been thought of and talked about more or 
less, nothing definite was done about it until in the 
summer of 1901, when, at the meeting of Bell Post, 
No. 74, Department of New Hampshire, Grand 
Army of the Republic, George A. Hosley, a mem- 
ber of Abraham Lincoln Post G. A. R., of Charles- 
town, Mass., — but then and now a resident of Ches- 
ter, — being present as a visitor, suggested that there 
ought to be a soldiers' monument in Chester and. 



Chester Monument 3 

further, said that he, personally, would contribute 
$ioo toward a fund for that purpose." 

This was on the 15th day of June, 1901. 

The question of ways and means came up imme- 
diately for discussion and serious doubts were ex- 
pressed by some of the members of the Post as to 
the chances of raising sufficient money among the 
people of the town to accomplish the desired object. 
Then and there, Mr. Marston, one of their mem- 
bers, was authorized to prepare and send a printed 
circular on the subject to the natives of Chester 
residing outside of the State, soliciting contribu- 
tions in aid of the enterprise. The responses, as may 
generally be expected in such cases, were, with a 
few worthy exceptions, too meagre to merit further 
mention here. 

Happily, at this juncture, another organization 
then existed in Chester of a spirit kindred to that 
of the veterans who composed the Grand Army Post, 
whose mission was a holy one — the Woman's Relief 
Corps, an auxiliary of that of the State. 

This Corps took up at once the work of co-opera- 
tion in the cause, and stood by it with unflinching 
purpose and devotion to the end. 

Of this Corps, Colonel Hosley writes: "You 
cannot say too much in praise of them in your book. 
If it had not been for them we would never have 
had the monument, at least no such a one as we have. 



4 Chester Monument 

It was not only the money they raised, but the in- 
fluence their enthusiasm and zeal had on the rest 
of the community." 

The first plan adopted was of a plain, modest 
granite shaft, to cost about $675, with the hope that 
the town would make an appropriation at its next 
annual town meeting of $400, in addition to what 
had been already raised and promised by subscrip- 
tion and otherwise, to make up the sum. 

So the matter awaited the hoped-for action of 
the town ; but, when election-day came and the ques- 
tion was reached in its order for consideration, in- 
stead of an appropriation of money, as expected, a 
committee, upon motion of Nathan Morse, since 
deceased, consisting of Mr. Marston and Edward 
J. Robie, was appointed, with instructions to ascer- 
tain for what the monument could be purchased 
and to report the result of their inquiries to the town 
meeting for the next ensuing year. 

During this year, on behalf of the committee, 
Mr. Marston obtained the designs of four different 
monuments, consulted contractors and dealers as to 
the cost of the same and obtained all other data 
and information required to make up an intelligent 
report on the subject. 

The town election for 1903 was held on the 
loth day of March. 

The proposed monument was the most important 



Chester Monument 5 

question that came up for consideration before the 
meeting on that day. Mr. Marston reviewed the 
work of the committee and stated the case in a simple 
and convincing manner to the assembled voters, and 
then Colonel Hosley followed with a stirring appeal 
to the judgment and patriotism of the town, paying a 
tribute to the usual liberality of its citizens in the 
support of all good causes; and the result was that, 
on motion of Nelson Gillingham, an appropriation 
of $800 was unanimously voted as a fund to aid in 
building the monument, which appropriation was 
supplemented, the following year, by an additional 
one of $200. 

This motion included also the designation of 
Colonel Hosley, as agent of the town, to purchase 
the monument; but, at his suggestion, others were 
elected to be associated with him upon the commit- 
tee, namely: John M. Webster, Nathan W. Gold- 
smith, Mr. Marston and Walter I. Martin, making 
a committee of five in all, of which Colonel Hosley 
was recognized as the natural chairman. 

For the consideration of this committee, Mr. 
Marston then, without making a decided departure 
from the original design, but proportioned on a 
somewhat larger scale, sketched out a rough plan of 
a plain shaft, surmounting a cap and die, the whole 
resting on three foundation- or base-stones. 

This met with the substantial favor of the com- 



6 Chester Monument 

mittee, but was not acceptable to the members of the 
Woman's Relief Corps, who desired that the base 
be surmounted by a statue in place of the shaft, 
promising to raise the extra money that this 
change would cost, which promise they liberally 
redeemed. 

They were building better than they knew. 

The new proposition, of course, would put an 
end to the plans already considered, because the 
dimensions determined upon for the shaft would not 
be suitable for the statue. 

In deference to the request of the Woman's Re- 
lief Corps, the change was determined upon, and, 
on the 25th day of July, 1903, the committee of 
five convened and adopted a resolution empower- 
ing Mr. Marston, its secretary and treasurer, to 
make a contract for such a monument as in his 
judgment and discretion would be most suitable and 
practicable, having regard to the amount of funds 
available. 

Mr. Marston fully realized the responsibility of 
the trust thus imposed upon him by the committee. 
He at once sought suggestions from the personal 
inspection of monuments that he had not seen be- 
fore, and investigated the question of values and 
prices; and, although he had never been a student 
in any of the schools or academies of design in the 
land or under any of the masters of the art, he had 



Chester Monument 7 

a natural eye, wonderful in power and accuracy, 
for form, color and symmetrical proportion, which 
enabled him to wo-rk out by exceeding care and dili- 
gence the beautiful and artistic design which the 
sculptor and workers in stone have reproduced in 
granite from the quarries of Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire and Rhode Island. 

On the 9th day of February, 1904, he completed 
a contract with Messrs. Parmer & Garmon, of Man- 
chester, N. H., for the making and erection of a 
soldiers' monument in Chester in accordance with 
the plans and specifications made by him and of 
which the committee had knowledge. 

The monument was finished according to the 
terms of the contract, and placed in position on the 
19th day of July, 1904. 

How skilfully the work was done by the con- 
tractors, and how considerate they were in the price 
agreed upon, is not unworthy of mention in this 
connection. 

And now, as we reach the end of the first part of 
our Introduction and call up in review the facts as 
therein narrated, the conclusion, ever worthy of re- 
membrance, comes to us that the Soldiers' Monu- 
ment in Chester, as it stands at the crossing of the 
old highways, owes its existence to the united efforts 
and generous co-operation of the Grand Army Post, 
the Woman's Relief Corps, and the citizen-voters of 



8 Chester Monument 

the town at the annual elections of 1903 and 1904, to 
the artistic genius of Cyrus F. Marston and to the 
liberal contributions of time and money made by 
Colonel George A. Hosley, who was its inspiration 
and guiding spirit from the beginning to the end. 



The 22d day of August, 1904, is destined to be 
memorable in the life-history of Chester as " Dedi- 
cation Day." 

It was the more conspicuous because its festivi- 
ties were happily blended with " Old Home Day." 

The coming event had been quite well advertised 
through the columns of the press and by the near-by 
Grand Army Posts, the Woman's Relief Corps of the 
State, and the Grand Army of the Republic, at its 
annual reunion held in Boston the previous week. 

The Derry News, enjoying a wide and well- 
merited circulation in the community and voicing 
the kindly sentiment of all the press, had given 
it their inspiration in language which turned out 
to be prophetic: 

" The Old Home Day in Chester this year will 
be marked with a ceremony of dedication which 
will prove a memorable epoch in the history of the 
old town. The dedication of the Soldiers' Monu- 
ment will prove an event of special interest to all 
who may be so fortunate as to witness it." 



Chester Monument 9 

The conditions in every way were most favor- 
able. 

All day long, the Saturday before, rain had 
poured in torrents from out the heavens, which 
served to purify the atmosphere and to moisten the 
dry and dusty earth. The intervening Sabbath was 
fair, and Monday, the day selected for the ex- 
ercises, was most propitious — one of those choice 
days not uncommon in New Hampshire when 
the rays of the Summer sun are gratefully 
tempered with delicious breezes from the distant 
mountains. 

The flag was in evidence at all the appropriate 
points and the village homes were handsomely dec- 
orated with the emblems of patriotism. 

The dedicatory exercises, which had been looked 
forward to with great interest, called out a large 
concourse of people and were attended with every 
indication of joyous satisfaction — a concourse esti- 
mated by conservative judges to be not less than six 
thousand people. 

There came from all points of the compass vet- 
erans of the Loyal Legion and of the Grand Army 
of the Republic. 

Almost the entire population of Chester, 
prompted by a genuine spirit of patriotism and sin- 
cere local pride, eager to manifest a natural interest 
in an event which meant so much for the town, 



10 Chester Monument 

gathered about the monument long before the hour 
appointed. 

There were present also many from the sur- 
rounding towns, and delegations from Concord, 
Manchester, Nashua, Exeter, Portsmouth and other 
cities in New Hampshire, and from Boston, Lowell, 
Haverhill, Lawrence and other towns in Massa- 
chusetts; and some " Old Home Day" comers were 
there from States in the Mississippi Valley and as 
far west as the Dakotas. 

The presence of such an audience, embracing 
many persons of distinction in civil, military and 
social circles, was not only highly gratifying to the 
members of the committee who had labored so 
earnestly and faithfully to make the occasion a com- 
plete success, but a most decided and delightful in- 
spiration to the speakers. 

A little after ten o'clock in the morning, the pro- 
cession was formed, as previously planned by the 
committee, at a rendezvous in front of the hotel, 
whence it marched to the grandstand, its objective 
point, where the dedicatory exercises were to be 
held. 

At the appointed time, 10.30 o'clock, the exer- 
cises opened at the grandstand. 

The order of the ceremonies as arranged by the 
committee under Colonel Hosley, President of the 
Day, was exceedingly appropriate. 



Chester Monument 11 

The formal ceremonies of dedication, conducted 
by Colonel Kent, according to the ritual of the 
Grand Army, followed in course at the close of the 
opening oration of the day, but we deem it not out 
of place to make reference to them here. 

These proceedings, which occupied, perhaps, 
three-quarters of an hour in their development, were 
both picturesque and pathetic. 

They were received by the assemblage with like 
effect as if they were witnessing the introduction of 
a picture of striking import amid the passing scenes 
of some great drama of historic events upon a the- 
atrical stage. 

First in order, George Sherman West, chairman 
of the Selectmen of the town, on behalf of the town, 
in appropriate language, gave the monument into 
the keeping of the New Hampshire Department of 
the Grand Army of the Republic, of which Colonel 
Kent was in command. 

Next, a detail of the Guard of Honor, consist- 
ing of Comrades Emery, Edwards, Brown, True, 
Noyes and Edwin Plummer, were posted about the 
base of the monument as sentinels for its protection 
during the ceremonies, as required by the ritual. 

At the proper time, the Guard of Honor " set 
up " against one side of the monument-base an 
anchor, crossed with a boarding-pike — the symbol 
of the Navy — and stationed Gilman E. Brown, 



12 Chester Monument 

dressed in the uniform of the Union sailor, in the 
attitude of a sentinel for its protection, with his 
cutlass at salute; and, as emblematical of the Army 
service, they placed against the opposite side in 
proper combination the musket with fixed bayonet, 
canteen, haversack and knapsack, and in charge of 
this symbol they stationed Charles F. True, in the 
uniform of the volunteer Union soldier, with his 
arms at present, thus exhibiting to the eye a living 
tableau of attractiveness and artistic beauty. 

When Colonel Kent had finished reading from 
the pages of his ritual, which embraced passages 
from the Scriptures appropriate to the occasion, and 
a prayer had been said by the Chaplain, the flag 
hitherto held in reserve was unfurled for the first 
time; and, as it floated out upon the breeze, the 
Kingston Band welcomed its appearance with the 
stirring strains of the " Star Spangled Banner," and 
the vast audience rose to it, and uncovered in its 
glorious and inspiring presence. 

Acknowledgments are due from the people of 
Chester to the press, and to their able correspondents 
who were in attendance, for the interesting and in- 
structive reports of the proceedings and exercises 
which they published in their newspapers on the 
following day and during the remainder of " Old 
Home Day " week, notably to the Manchester Union, 
the Mirror and American, The Derry News and The 



Chester Monument 13 

Boston Globe, which last was conspicuous among the 
press outside of the State for the generous promi- 
nence which it gave in its columns to a faithful ac- 
count of the proceedings. 

It was a subject of congratulation that Mr. Burn- 
ham, the junior United States Senator from New 
Hampshire, and Mr. Sulloway, the Representative 
in Congress from the District, were able to be pres- 
ent and participate as they did in the proceedings, 
and one of regret that Governor Bachelder and Mr. 
Gallinger, the senior Senator from the State, and 
Mr. Currier, Representative in Congress from the 
Second District, were unavoidably absent. The ab- 
sence also of General John C. Black, on account of 
severe illness, was a source of disappointment, 
especially to the old veterans, on account of his 
relation to the Grand Army of the Republic as its 
late Commander-in-Chief and of his fame as a 
public speaker. 

It is to us a matter of regret that, while we have 
the disposition, we have not the space here to men- 
tion the names of the many distinguished people, and 
of the many dear personal friends, from far and near, 
who honored the occasion with their presence; but 
this omission is fortunately supplied by the list of 
names gathered at the time by Miss Fitz, the Libra- 
rian of the town, and also is of less moment because 
of the fact that a liberal mention of those present 



14 Chester Monument 

may be found in the various reports published in the 
newspapers of the time. 

It remains to be said that nothing in connection 
with the notable occasion was more heartily appre- 
ciated than the generous act of Mr. Thayer in plac- 
ing the use and control of his hotel (then temporarily 
withdrawn from the public service) in the hands of 
the Committee of Arrangements, who opened wide 
its doors and made it available for the comfort and 
enjoyment of the public and for the hospitalities so 
bounteously provided. 

This old hostelry, which has a most interesting 
history and which has long been recognized as one 
of the ancient landmarks of the town, has in its time 
played many parts, but none more opportune than 
that which it took in the festivities of " Dedication 
Day." 

To its well-arranged tables, when the regular ex- 
ercises at the grandstand had closed, came the in- 
vited guests, members of the press and others to 
partake of and enjoy the bountiful dinner prepared 
and served, on the unsurpassed New England plan, 
by the Woman's Relief Corps. 

This was followed in due time by the witnessing 
on the part of some of the people of the near-by field 
sports that had been advertised as a part of the pro- 
gramme, and by speeches, recitations, songs and the 
usual camp-fire exercises on the part of the veterans 



Chester Monument 15 

and others upon and around the hotel veranda, un- 
der the leadership of the Grand Army Club of Mas- 
sachusetts, while across the way, upon the beautiful 
lawn that lies within the residence-grounds of the 
late lamented Dr. Emerson, love-makers walked arm 
in arm, old friendships were renewed and new ones 
formed, greetings were given and farewells said; 
and still later on, and into the shadows of the even- 
ing, the Kingston Band discoursed sweet music on 
the village green, and wellnigh on to midnight the 
voices of merriment could be heard, gradually dying 
away, until at length the last loiterer of the day's 
vast multitude of six thousand people had vanished 
from the streets, leaving the Soldiers' Monument, 
still carrying the emblems of its dedication, standing 
in its place, under the mild light of the eternal stars, 
imposing, silent and alone — a fitting symbol of the 
Nation's love for its loyal and brave defenders. 

Washington, D. C. G. C. H. 



I& 



Bell Post No. 74, Department of New Hampshire, 
G. A. R. (1904) 

Officers 



Isaac N. A. McKay. . 




.... Commander, 


James Buchanan 




....S. V. C. 


Charles F. True. . . . 




....J. V. C. 


Albert F. B. Edwards 




....Adj't. 


Edward J. Robie .... 




....Q. M. 


Samuel G. Healy. . . . 




Surg. 


Samuel S. Parker. . . . 




.... Chap. 


James H. Hardy. . . . 




....0. D. 


James Gerah 




....0. G. 


George W. Davis . . . 




. . . . S. M. 


Henry C. Cobb 




. . . . Q. M. S. 



17 



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Officers of Bell Woman's Relief Corps No. 78, 
Chester, N. H., Auxiliary to G. A. R. (1904) 

Sarah A. Buzzell President. 

Emma B. Marston S. V. P. 

Anna E. Edwards Jr. V. P. 

Sarah J. True Secretary. 

Orissa A. Sargent Treasurer. 

Mabel M. Green Chaplain. 

Helen A. Shackford Conductor. 

Abbie S. Hardy Ass't Conductor. 

Cynthia J. Brown Guard. 

Eliza J. Brown Ass't Guard. 

Jennie P. Hazelton Patriotic Instructor. 

Lavinia J. Wason Press Correspondent. 

Emeline F. Robie ist Color Bearer. 

Mary E. Merrill 2d Color Bearer. 

Josie S. Whittemore 3d Color Bearer. 

Lurana McKay 4th Color Bearer. 

Julia A. Lawrence Musician. 



19 



Members 



Bean, M. L. 
Brown, Cynthia J. 
Brown, Eliza J. 
Brown, Lizzie 
Brown, Nellie M. 
Buswell, Mary E. 
Buzzell, Sarah A. 
Chase, Linda B. 
Edwards, Anna E. 
Ellis, Abbie L. 
Gerah, Sarah A. 
Greene, Mabel M. 
Hardy, Abbie S. 
Hazelton, Jennie P. 
Healey, Melissa 
Heath, Jennie A. 
Jack, Jessie A. 
Jones, Mary A. 
Lawrence, Julia A. 
Mackintosh, Marilla 
Marston, Emma B. 
Merrill, Mary E. 
McDuffie, Vena V. 



McKay, Lorana 
Noyes, Carrie P. 
Parker, Ellen A. 
Preston, Emily A. D. 
Robie, Emeline F. 
Robie Emma A. 
Robie, Sarah J. 
Rowell, Emma 
Sargent, Orlssa A. 
Shackford, Helen A. 
Smith, Ida L. 
Smith, May L. 
Smith, Ruth A. 
Stevens, Sarah A. 
Southwick, Rose 
Tenny, Harriette D. 
Thayer, Addie W. 
True, Sarah J. 
Wason, Lavinia J. 
Wells, Luna Moore 
West, Mary J. 
Whittemore, Josie S. 



20 



DESCRIPTION OF MONUMENT 

The pedestal, except the die, is of Concord 
granite, all hammered except the first or bottom 
base, which is " rock face " with margin lines. 

The die is of medium-dark Quincy granite, 
polished. 

The statue is of blue Westerly granite. 



Dimensions: First, or bottom base, 6 ft. lo x 
6 ft. lo X I ft. 8 in. ; second base, 5 f t. 2 x 5 f t. 2 x i 
ft. 3 in.; third base (or plinth), 4 ft. 2x4 ft. 2xr 
ft. 9 in.; die, 3 ft. 3x3 ft. 3x4 ft. i^ in.; cap, 
4 ft. 2 X 4 ft. 2 X I ft. 9 in ; plinth, 2 ft. 8 x 2 ft. 8 x i 
ft. 2 in. ; statue, 6 ft. 6 in., including its base, making 
the figure itself about 6 ft. 2 in. 

The dimensions of the base are on the finished 
margin lines. If the measurements were made on 
the projecting rock face, it would be full 7 feet 
square. 

The foundation contains upward of 250 cubic 
feet of solid stone and best Portland cement, the 
whole resting on solid rock or ledge. 

The total height above the foundation is 18 ft. 
2 in. 



21 



(North Side, or Front) 
Died in the Service 

Louis Bell, Capt. Co. A, ist N. H. Vols.; Lieut. Col. 4th 
N. H. Vols., when organized; promoted to Col., 
March 11, 1862; Ins. Gen. and Chief-of-Staff under 
Gen. Thomas W. Sherman; in January, 1865, com- 
manded a brigade in the successful assault upon Fort 
Fisher, where, on January 15th, he received a mortal 
wound, and died on the i6th, near the scene of the 
battle; and, by command of President Lincoln, 
given, by Secretary Stanton, the brevet rank of Brig. 
Gen., bearing date, January 15, 1865, the day he 
received his wound. 

Andrew S. Nichols, Co. C, 2d N. H. Vols. 

Joseph Everett, Co. E, 2d N. H. Vols., and Co. F, 8th 
N. H. Vols. 

Alphonzo P. R. Smith, Co. K, 3d N. H. Vols. 

Charles H. Weymouth, Co. B, 3d N. H. Vols. 

Charles L. Seavey, Co. C, 4th N. H. Vols. 

William M. Locke, Co. C, 6th N. H. Vols. 

Joseph W. Haselton, Co. I, 5th N. H. Vols. 

Henry D. Davis, Co. A, 7th N. H. Vols. 

Harrison Sanborn, Co. D, 7th N. H. Vols. 

Page R. Smith, Co. D, 7th N. H. Vols. 

Robert Wason, Co. D, 7th N. H. Vols. 

Warren J. Hills, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 

Henry N. Brown, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 

22 



Chester Monument 23 

Milton S. Brown, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
John S. Currier, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
Albert V^ason, Co. D, i8th N. H. Vols. 
Albert B. Goldsmith, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 
Henry H. Hook, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 
Alonzo A. Busher, Co. D, 7th N. H. Vols. 
Franklin C. Weeks, Cos. F and C, 14th N. H. Vols. 
Charles S. V^ells, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 



(East Side) 
Honorably Discharged 

Wallace T. Larkin, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols., appointed 

Lieut, and promoted to Capt. In 83d Inf. (old), and 

73d and 117th Inf., U. S. C. T. 
John A. Hazelton, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
D. La Roy Sanborn, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
Samuel V. Osgood, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols., and Co. D, 

i8thN. H. Vols. 
John W. West, 2d, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols., and Co. K, 

1st N. H. H. A. Vols. 
Luther C. Stevens, Co. K, 15th N. H. H. A. Vols., and 

Co. L, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 
Marston L. Brown, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
Matthew Forsaith, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
Benjamin F. Spofford, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
Samuel S. Adams, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 
Wlllard E. Colburn, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 
Richard H. Currier, Co. D, i8th N. H. Vols. 



24 Chester Monument 

Malcomb W. Tewksbury, Co. C, 104th III., appointed 
Capt. 

Stephen D. Underhill, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 

William S. Greenough, Co. D, i8th N. H. Vols., ap- 
pointed Capt. and promoted to Major by brevet for 
gallant service. 

Augustus P. Greenough, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Richard C. Lawrence, Jr., Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Perley C. Ingalls, Co. D, iSth N. H. Vols. 

Silas F. Learnard, Co. H, iSth N. H. Vols., appointed 
Capt. 

John T. Lovett, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Ephraim Nichols, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Fred D. Morse, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

George S. Smith, Co. D, i8th N. H. Vols. 

William B. Robie, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Benjamin F. Underhill, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Charles B. Robie, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

William H. Underhill, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Cyrus S. Dolloff, Co. H, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Isaac F. Underhill, Co. D, i8th N. H. Vols. 

Frederick Spollett, ist N. H. Battery. 



(South Side) 
Honorably Discharged 

Cyrus F. Marston, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

Jacob J. Elliott, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols., and Navy, 
served on U. S. S. Ohio, Penguin, Seminole and 
Jacob Bell ; discharged as Paymaster's Steward, July 
27, 1864. 



Chester Monument 25 

Joseph W. Chase, Co. C, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

George F. Tebbetts, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

John W. Haselton, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

Clement A. West, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

George H. McDuffee, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

Charles H. West, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

George W. Wilcomb, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

Charles F. True, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

Elbrldge Wason, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

Charles P. Abbott, Co. K, ist N. H. H. A. Vols. 

Edward J. Robie, Co. G, ist N. H. Cav. Vols. 

Mark Carr, Co. A, ist N. H. Cav. Vols. 

John L. Blaisdell, Co. B, 3d N. H. Vols. 

Silas W. Tenney, Co. F, 2d U. S. V., Sharpshooters. 

Nelson Gilllngham, Co. A, nth N. H. Vols. 

John Robinson, Co. F, 8th N. H. Vols. 

William A. Brown, Co. B, 6 ist Mass. Inf. 

Samuel S. Parker, Co, B, 6 ist Mass. Inf. 

Franklin A. Morse, Navy, served on U. S. S. Ohio, Ben- 
ton, St. Clair and Ouachita. 

Oliver Dunaven, Navy, served on U. S. S. Ohio, South 
Carolina and Niagara. 

Daniel Osgood, Co. F, 14th Mass. Inf. 

Francis Savoie, Co. D, i8th N. H. Vols. 



26 Chester Monument 

(West Side) 
Honorably Discharged 

Aaron Everett, Co. E, 2d N. H. Vols. 

George L. Brown, Co. E, 2d N. H. Vols. 

Joseph R. Morse, Co. E, 2d N. H. Vols., and Co. H, 

1 8th N. H. Vols. 
Joslah D. Morse, Co. E, 2d N. H. Vols., and Co. F, 8th 

N. H. Vols. 
James Buchanan, Co. K, 2d N. H. Vols., and Co. B, nth 

N. H. Vols. 
Arthur T. Learnard, Co. E, 2d N. H. Vols. 
Joseph Dane, Co. K, 2d N. H. Vols. 
Charles J. Rand, Co. C, 2d N. H. Vols., and N. H. Bat- 
tery. 
Charles A. Dearborn, Co. B, 3d N. H. Vols. 
Lloyd G. Gale, Co. K, 3d N. H. Vols. 
James Gerah, Co. B, 3d N. H. Vols., and Co. B, Vet. 

R. C. 
Stickney S. Gale, Co. K, 4th N. H. Vols. 
Converse L. Weymouth, Co. B, 3d N. H. Vols. 
Edwin Jones, Co. B, 3d N. H. Vols., and Co. B, Vet. 

R. C. 
David J. Dearborn, Co. A, 5th N. H. Vols., and Co. B, 

i2thN. Y. Inf. 
James M. M. Elliott, Co. A, 8th N. H. Vols., and Co. I, 

iithN. H. Vols. 
Franklin A. Brown, Co. I, 4th N. H. Vols. 
Samuel C. McDuffee, Co. F, 8th N. H. Vols. 
Charles H. Kent, Co. F, 8th N. H. Vols. 



Chester Monument 27 

Dudley J. Marston, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 

Cyrus E. Roberts, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols., and Co. D, 

7th N. H. Vols. 
Sewell W. Tenney, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 
Daniel S. West, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 
William E. C. Coolldge, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 
John Underhill, Co. I, nth N. H. Vols., and Lieut, in 

Co. D, 1 8th N. H. Vols. 
Nathaniel West, Jr., Co. I, nth N. H. Vols. 
David F. Clay, Co. K., 15th N. H. Vols. 
Emerson H. Childs, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 
Albert F. B. Edwards, Co. K. 15th N. H. Vols., and Co. 

D, i8thN. H. Vols. 
David C. French, Co. K, 15th N. H. Vols. 



^ 



LINE OF MARCH 

Battalion of Police; 
Chief Marshal, Judge Alfred D. Emery; 
Kingston Cornet Band; 
Bell Post No. 74 G. A. R. and delegates from Derry Post, 
Louis Bell Post, of Manchester, and Joseph Hooker Post, 
of Raymond, acting as escort to the Department officers of 
New Hampshire G. A. R., Colonel Henry O. Kent, Com- 
mander, and Frank Battles, Assistant Adjutant General. 



State colors of Massachusetts, under guard of Abraham 

Lincoln Camp No. io6 S. of V. from Boston, Mass., 

William D. Barber, Commander, and A. W. Mechan, 

Color Sergeant. 



Grand Army Club of Massachusetts, acting as escort to 
the Department and Post Department officers of Massa- 
chusetts and National officers G. A. R., Colonel Joseph W. 
Thayer commanding. 



Hon. George C. Hazelton, 
Orator of the Day. 



Selectmen of Chester: 
George Sherman West, Leroy D. Morse and William T. 

Owen. 

29 



30 Chester Monument 

Monument Committee: 

Colonel George A. Hosley, John M. Webster, Nathan 

Goldsmith, Cyrus F. Marston and Walter 

I. Martin. 



" Old Home Day " Association, with invited guests and 

speakers. 



Officers of Chester's " Old Home Day " : 
President, Colonel George A. Hosley; First Vice-Presi- 
dent, W. B. Underhill; Secretary, F. E. Roble; Treasurer, 
George S. West; and Executive Committee, William 

Jones, A. F. B. Edwards and Edward Jones. 



Colonel George A. Hosley, President 
OF THE Day: 

Fellow-Citizens, Comrades of the Grand Army, 
Members of the Woman's Relief Corps and 
Visitors: 

We welcome you here to-day for a double pur- 
pose, that of celebrating " Old Home Day " and to 
dedicate our beautiful monument. 

I wish right here to thank the citizens of Ches- 
ter for the liberal manner in which they came for- 
ward and contributed toward this monument, and 
also to say that it is owing to the exertions and work 
of Cyrus F. Marston that we have been able to get 
so good a monument for the money. 

But you are not here to hear me talk, so we will 
commence the exercises by prayer. 

I take great pleasure in introducing the Rev. 
Chester J. Wilcomb, a native of Chester. 



31 



^ 



Rev. Chester J. Wilcomb: 

Great God, our Father in Heaven, Author of 
life, Giver of every blessing, v^e humbly bow before 
Thee in gratitude for the blessings of the past — 
to our country, to our tow^n, to our homes and to 
ourselves. 

As we are met here to-day, O God, we pray that 
Thy blessing may rest upon us and upon the exer- 
cises of this occasion. Wilt Thou bless those who 
have survived the great conflicts of the past. Bless, 
we pray, the homes here represented and this peo- 
ple, and grant that the exercises of this day and this 
week may be an inspiration to us all to love and 
serve Thee, so that, when our life's course shall 
have been run, and the last battle fought, when the 
last call shall be given, it may be our pleasure to 
receive the reward of those who have been faithful 
even unto death. And to Thy name we will give all 
praise for ever and ever. Amen. 



^ 



Colonel Hosley: 

I now take great pleasure in introducing one who 
is a native of this town, in fact, needs no introduc- 
tion to citizens of Chester. He was born here and 
roamed over these hills when a boy. I now intro- 
duce to you the Hon. George C. Hazelton, of Wash- 
ington, D. C, for three terms a Representative in 
Congress from Wisconsin. 



36 



<& 



Hon. George C. Hazelton, Orator of the Day: 

Mr. President^ Officers and Veterans of the 
Grand Army, Fellow-Citizens, Kindred and 
Friends: 

The strength of a free government like ours may 
be fairly measured by the love it bears to those of its 
citizens who ofifer up their lives in the hour of its 
imminent peril, either in the defence or in the asser- 
tion of its just rights, on land or sea. 

Reversing the rule of the monarchies, we make 
the military power subordinate to the civil, and we 
place our main reliance upon the volunteer armies 
and navies who come, at the Nation's call, from the 
reserve power of the people, to protect its honor and 
to fight its battles. 

This power has never failed us or been sum- 
moned in vain. 

By the achievements of two great volunteer 
armies, the army of the American Revolution and 
the Union forces of 1861, we have established our 
free, representative Government and our enlightened 
civilization. 

The seven long years which ended at Yorktown 

37 



38 Chester Monument 

and the five longer years which ended at Appomat- 
tox constitute the two great heroic periods of our 
history, and I think of the history of the world. 

They are linked together by a golden chain of 
patriotic memories and by the dramatic unities of 
kindred events in the evolution of free government. 
They are beacon-fires that will burn on and on 
forever more. 

It was by the achievements of the first army that 
the way was opened and the Republic made possible 
in the new world. 

It was by the achievements of the Union forces 
that the Government was preserved in its integrity 
and given a new birth of freedom. 

The new-born Republic in an early day paid ofif 
the expenses of the first war, a mere pittance of one 
hundred and forty million dollars; and the last sol- 
dier on the first pension-roll of honor in our history 
has been paid and his account with the Government 
closed by the hand of death. 

But the places where their camp-fires gleamed 
and where they fought the battles for American in- 
dependence are still well known; new monuments 
arise to their memories within the thirteen original 
States; History and Romance are writing of their 
deeds and valor new pages for our literature; and 
the Daughters of the Revolution, and the Sons of the 
Revolution, and other lovers of liberty are, day by 



Chester Monument 39 

day, and year by year, gleaning up " the scattered 
ashes into History's golden urn." 

The redeemed Republic has not been unmind- 
ful either of the responsibilities that rested anew 
upon the Nation by reason of the heroic services of 
her armies and navies in the War of 1861. Already 
the pension-roll of honor has reached proportions 
far exceeding in munificence that of any other na- 
tion, either of ancient or of modern times. 

If a man shall give his life to save mine, how 
shall I estimate the value of such service? If, in 
saving my life, he shall become totally or partially 
disabled for the performance of manual duty, shall 
I not give him out of my bounty at least food, 
raiment and shelter? 

And what is this in comparison to the obligation 
to the soldiers and sailors of the War of the Rebel- 
lion that rests upon this mighty Nation, whose life 
they saved — an obligation that no pension-roll can 
meet, as priceless as the inalienable rights of man, 
as the air we breathe — an obligation that no line 
or rule known to science or mathematics can 
measure? 

If all the sands of all the seas " were pearl, the 
water nectar, and the rocks pure gold," and they 
were ours to give, they would not compass the mag- 
nitude, the heights, the depths of the debt we owe to 
these men for this, our free representative Govern- 



40 Chester Monument 

ment, resting in the will of the people and carrying 
to all alike the guarantees of " life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." 

Since Appomattox, the Nation has gratefully ex- 
pended out of the treasury of the people twelve 
million dollars, in round numbers, to purchase, set 
aside and adorn eighty-four national cemeteries, ia 
which sleep forever its immortal dead. These ceme- 
teries are located generally hard by the battle-fields 
where these dead fought and fell. 

Within these sacred reservations, an army of 
three hundred and thirty-seven thousand Union sol- 
diers lie buried; and of this number one hundred and 
forty-eight thousand are nameless, resting in graves 
that are marked " Unknown." 

At each of these sacred reservations, the Govern- 
ment has placed a guard that never sleeps. Every 
morning, at the rising of the sun, the starry emblem 
of our national authority is unfurled; and, when it 
shall cease to float over these consecrated grounds, 
there will be naught of this Government but the bare 
walls to tell the reason why. 

Every year, when the Spring-time comes, with 
new leaf and bloom, the Nation repairs to these holy 
shrines, and, in the solemn presence of the monu- 
ments and headstones that commemorate brave 
deeds, with reverent step and bowed head, upon the 
green graves that cover sacred ashes, lays lovingly 



Chester Monument 41 

and tenderly her wreaths of laurel and garlands of 
flowers, ever votive and beautiful, 

Roses that love, and pansies that deplore them, 
And lilies, weeping from their hearts of snow I 

In the same pathetic spirit, we gather here to-day 
to dedicate this monument — so far as we can dedicate 
it — to the honor and the memory of the one hundred 
and six sons of Chester who left their loving homes 
to join the army and navy of the Union in the defence 
of their Government, in the great crisis of 1861. 

It has risen to its place here partly by the aid of 
the township which it honors, and partly by the 
voluntary contributions of men and women who 
love the cause it represents, while its fair propor- 
tions and its successful completion are largely due 
to the untiring zeal and faithful supervision of 
Cyrus F. Marston, whose name, with his comrade- 
soldiers, is enrolled upon its heroic scrolls. 

In this connection permit me to say a word as to 
myself. 

The soil whereon I stand is mine by birthright; 
my family name and lineage run back to the earliest 
settlement of the township. Here is the homestead ; 
here was the school-house and the play-ground; here 
sleep many generations of my fathers; and here are 
the graves of the early loved and lost, whose " mem- 



42 Chester Monument 

ories were the same as mine and who launched life's 
bark with me." 

Many of the men whose names are enrolled upon 
the tablets of this monument were once my comrades, 
school-mates and friends. 

I therefore share naturally in all the pride and 
glory which this occasion brings to the people of 
my native town; and I pause here to speak an his- 
toric word in her behalf. 

The town of Chester has now passed the line of 
the first and is well advanced into the second century 
of its life. 

It was here fifty years before our flag was un- 
furled or known; it was here when the three great 
monarchies of Europe, with the native tribes, held 
in their grasp all the eastern Canadas and all the 
territory now embraced within the boundaries of the 
Republic; it was here when the first king of the 
House of Hanover put on his crown. 

It was in his name that its grant of titles was 
given. 

You can trace, at a glance, on the arch that spans 
the line of its development, the transformation from 
the solitude of a primeval wilderness, where the in- 
fant colony was cradled, to the cultivated fields and 
fruited orchards that now open to our view — from 
the tepees of the red men, for they were here, to 
these temples of worship, seats of learning and 



Chester Monument 43 

homes of comfort and refinement that have taken 
their places. 

The permanency of the settlement was assured 
from the beginning. It was assured by the character 
of its pioneer settlers and by the great purposes for 
which they sought new homes in the new world. 

Its population was made up from the three lead- 
ing races of the earth — the English, Scotch and Irish 
races. 

The English were of the flower of the English 
people, and of those who had planted the fore- 
runners of civil and religious liberty in the old 
world, which took root in the soil of the new. The 
Scotch were of the Highland Scotch, who sang 
the songs of Burns. The Irish — from the Em- 
erald Isle, " where the shamrock grows green from 
the cliffs to the shore," — were fired with the splendid 
sentiment which. Grattan voiced on the floor of the 
Irish Parliament: " I wish for nothing but to 
breathe in this, our island, in common with my 
fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I never will be 
satisfied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland 
has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags. 
He may be naked — he shall not be in irons." 

From time to time, men and women came from 
the colony of the Pilgrims, from the early settle- 
ments at Portsmouth, at Haverhill, at Hampton and 
at Exeter, and from the community of Scotch Pres- 



44 Chester Monument 

byterians from the north of Ireland, the best 
equipped of all, who, after many wanderings, finally 
rested their moving tents, and organized their new 
township, upon adjoining territory, in the name of 
Londonderry. 

It was a marvellous combination of human con- 
trarieties in disposition and temperament, marked by 
strong individual characteristics, by independence of 
thought and action, furnishing a character for every 
act in every play on every stage of life, but speaking 
a common language and on all the main lines of 
human progress a unit. 

They were so true to governmental authority 
that they maintained their loyalty to the English 
crown until that allegiance was absolved by the 
Declaration of Independence and by a successful 
revolution. They were Protestant in their religious 
faith, as were all the colonies, except that which 
was planted by the Calverts in Maryland. They be- 
lieved in the principles of civil and religious liberty, 
as did all the colonists of New England, as defined 
in the compact made by the Pilgrim Fathers in the 
cabin of the Mayflower, upon which the liberties of 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts now rest, and 
which were carried into the formation of this and 
all other township governments in the colony of 
New Hampshire. 

These provincial townships, as a matter of neces- 



Chester Monument 45 

sity, consolidated their interests on one line, of ad- 
vancing civilization. They made common cause 
with one another. They endured alike the hard- 
ships and privations of frontier life. They were im- 
bued with the same spirit and sentiment in public 
afifairs. They were equally resolute and brave in 
the hour of danger. 

It would have made no difference if the English 
redcoats had opened the war at Portsmouth or 
Hampton, at Londonderry or Chester; they would 
have been met by the same splendid resistance that 
was made at Lexington and Concord, when " the 
embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard 
round the world." 

It was to ascertain as accurately as possible to 
what extent this spirit prevailed among the people 
that the Continental Congress instituted the test of 
loyalty to the cause of the colonies by their resolu- 
tion of March 14, 1776. 

The war had actually begun, and this resolution 
was to draw the line between the loyal and disloyal 
— to sift the wheat from the chaff. 

It was a wise precaution. 

A Committee of Safety came here, as well as to 
all the other provincial towns in New England, to 
find out who were for and who were against the 
cause. 

The sentiment of this town is written in the 



46 Chester Monument 

pledge that was submitted by the Continental Con- 
gress : " We the Subscribers do hereby solemnly 
engage and promise, that we will, to the utmost in 
our Power, at the Risque of our Lives and Fortunes, 
with ARMS, oppose the Hostile Proceedings of the 
British Fleets and Armies against the United Ameri- 
can Colonies." 

This pledge was of the spirit of the Declaration 
of Independence, that soon followed. 

Two hundred and twenty men,* indicating a pop- 
ulation in the township then of about one thousand 
people, signed their names to this pledge, — signed 
it in the frowning presence of a government of over- 
whelming power, signed it in the very teeth of the 
English law of treason, knowing full well that each 
and all of them, in the event of failure, would be 
subject to the forfeiture of their lives and their 
property. 

Twenty per cent, and more of these signers made 
good the pledge on the battle-fields of the Revolu- 
tion. 

I find along the line of this town's history three 
prominent characters, whose ability and heroism 
would add lustre to any age or generation of men. 

Colonel David Webster was born here in 1738 
and was identified with the township and its people 
for twenty-five years. 

He was a man of heroic mould. In his boyhood, 



Chester Monument 47 

he was the master of all the manly sports. At the 
age of nineteen years, Stark and Rogers came 
here and chose him, from out a military organi- 
zation, to meet the dangers of the ranger service, 
on account of his superior manliness and personal 
bravery. 

He was a born soldier and was promoted through 
all the grades from private to colonel for gallantry 
in the service. He held an important command 
under Stark in the early Crown Point expedition. 
He held an important command under Stark in the 
battle of Bennington. He evinced the tact and 
bravery of Sheridan in hurling back upon the main 
column for surrender a fleeing detachment of Bur- 
goyne's army. 

I judge from the annals of his life that he had 
the beauty of Apollo and the strength of Spartacus; 
that he would not surrender a principle for the sake 
of peace ; that he was as brave as he was strong, and 
as good as he was brave. 

He was inured to all the hardships and priva- 
tions of frontier life; there was no mountain here 
he could not scale, no river he could not cross, no 
forest through which he could not find a way and no 
ambuscade he could not penetrate. 

He was the kind of man, of all men, to carry 
" a message to Garcia." 

He was one of the founders of the town of 



48 Chester Monument 

Plymouth, in this State, and died there, rich in years 
and rich in honor. 

His name and deeds are a sacred heritage to the 
town of Chester. 

The second of these illustrious characters came 
here from the Highlands of Scotland, straightway 
through the gates of the sea, and, within a year from 
the time he settled here, like John Burns to the army 
at Gettysburg, went to the American army at Bun- 
ker Hill, the eventful night before the battle, and 
helped to construct the flanking defences to Pres- 
cott's redoubt, fought valiantly for his country with 
Warren and Putnam, Stark and Prescott, Pomeroy 
and Gridley on the following day, saw Warren fall, 
" the first great martyr in this great cause," returned 
to his home and later appeared in the front ranks of 
Stark's army on the battle-field of Bennington. 

I know that no Highland chief that ever broke a 
lance in the battles of the Scottish clans was braver 
than this man, David Currier. 

His heroic blood reasserted itself in the veins of 
his two grandsons, bearing his family name, one of 
whom received a wound at Chantilly, that will never 
heal, and the other promotion for gallant service 
under Grant and Hancock, in the fierce battles of 
the Wilderness. 

This is a second heritage for the town of Chester. 

The third name, which adorns its civic history, 



Chester Monument 49 

is that of Joseph Blanchard, who settled here in 1772 
and whose grandfather had been a judicial officer 
in the provincial courts. 

He was a man of agreeable personality and 
endowed by nature in a marked degree with the 
well-balanced brain, the even temperament, the mar- 
vellous self-control, which enable men to command 
the will of others and to shape the destiny of public 
afifairs. He was possessed of the power of common 
sense, which neither learning nor colleges can give. 
In all the public and private trusts of life, he bore 
himself with integrity and honor. In his day and 
generation, he was the administrator of estates and 
the guardian of orphans. He was the earliest at the 
bedside of his sick or dying neighbors and among the 
warmest sympathizers at the burials of their dead. 
His countenance was open and free and his smile as 
sweet as summer: He 

Loved the angle and the gun, 
The story and the song. 

He had a distinguished public career as the 
chosen representative of this town for a term of five 
years in the House of Representatives and of two 
years in the Senate of the State; he was of the 
Advisory Council of the Governor; and, in the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1792, as a prominent dele- 



50 Chester Monument 

gate from Chester, he helped to enact into the or- 
ganic law of the State the " New Hampshire Bill 
of Rights," which, in the clearness of its diction and 
in the wide range it takes in the definition of human 
rights, civil and religious, as the basic principles of 
free, representative government, surpasses, in my 
judgment, the one that came from the brain and pen 
of George Mason, in the early days of Virginia, or 
any other that I have read in the political history 
of the world. 

The supreme event of his public service came 
when he was chosen to represent this town in the 
convention of this State of 1787 that ratified the 
American Constitution. This convention convened 
first at Exeter, in the Fall, and consummated its work 
at Concord, in the coming Spring. 

The approval of nine States was required to se- 
cure the ratification of the Constitution. New York 
and Virginia had not yet voted upon the important 
question, and it was of supreme importance that 
New Hampshire should cast the vote — as the ninth 
State — that would give it life. 

Blanchard caught at once the splendid perspec- 
tive of the incoming Republic. He knew the weak- 
ness of the Articles of Confederation, and he com- 
prehended fully the provisions of the proposed 
Constitution and the strength and power that its 
adoption would give to the American States. 



Chester Monument 51 

The people of his own town, under his influence, 
stood as a unit for its ratification; and, all winter 
long, he had labored with the chosen delegates of 
the adjoining towns to co-operate with him in the 
convention. 

Against Atherton and his followers, who com- 
bined to defeat its adoption, he stood like a rock 
in its favor with the elder and the younger Langdon, 
with John Sullivan, with Jonathan Chase, with 
Ebenezer Webster and with other distinguished 
men, who together secured its ratification in the end, 
by a vote of fifty-seven to forty-six. 

This majority vote was, perhaps, the most im- 
portant ever cast in the history of governments. 
Whether or not it hastened the approval which soon 
took place in the New York convention under the 
influence and leadership of Hamilton, and in the 
Virginia convention under the guiding wisdom of 
Washington, Madison and others, it of itself made 
certain the Republic. 

That the merit of New Hampshire being the 
ninth State might be assured for all time, they caused 
to be entered upon the records of the convention 
the very hour, as well as the day and year, that the 
final vote was given which ushered in the new Na- 
tion. 

He was the personal friend of John Langdon and 
Nicholas Oilman, and he was the contemporary of 



52 Chester Monument 

the other wise statesmen who framed this Consti- 
tution ; he knew that he could rely upon their states- 
manship and their patriotism; and so he was at the 
launching of the ship : and his hand helped to send 
her down the ways, with the flag at her masthead, 
into the great political ocean of the world, the best 
and the stanchest ship of state that ever sailed its 
waves. 

He knew better than any of us 

What master laid her keel, 

What workmen wrought her ribs of steel, 

Who made each mast and sail and rope, 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 

In what a forge and what a heat 

Were shaped the anchors of . . . [her] hope. 

All hail, then, to the memory of Joseph Blan- 
chard! From now on make him a household god 
in every home in Chester. 

It was his good fortune during his public career 
to represent the old town at a time when it embraced 
within its boundaries the crystal waters of the Mas- 
sabesic, upon the shores of which he lived and died. 

He sleeps in the old burial-ground, by the long 
meadows, where they laid him down in sorrow 
seventy-one years ago, in a grave now shaded by 
solemn pines and marked only by a simple slate-slab 
inscribed with the dates of birth and death and with 



Chester Monument 53 

the name, which is inseparably connected with the 
consummation of the best and most illustrious system 
of government in mankind's history. 

How young this Nation is when we count its life 
by centuries; and yet it has passed through so many 
wars that it stands out to the eye of the world like 
some old, battle-scarred warrior. 

Leaving out of consideration the Spanish War, 
which gave to Cuba independence and to us the 
unending problem of the Philippines, we have had 
wars innumerable with the Indian tribes, the War 
for the Independence of the Colonies, the War of 
1812, to establish the freedom of the seas, the Mexi- 
can War, waged primarily and essentially for the 
conquest of new territory out of which to carve ad- 
ditional slave States for the American Union, and 
the War of 1861, the greatest of all the wars, within 
whose fields of military operation, at the supreme 
moment, one million two hundred thousand Union 
soldiers stood in arms, grappling in deadly conflict 
the power of eleven States of the Union, consoli- 
dated in an armed rebellion, the best equipped, the 
fiercest and most determined, the bravest in action, 
and the wickedest in its declared purposes that was 
ever organized and set in motion on this earth 
against the authority of law or government, freedom 
or civilization. 

The opening scenes of this eventful drama and 



54 Chester Monument 

the marshalling of the Union armies are called to 
mind by the present occasion. 

We are with them again to-day; and, in the 
matchless language of Ingersoll's " Vision of War," 
**We see them all march proudly away under the 
flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild mu- 
sic of war, marching down the streets of the great 
cities, through the towns and across the prairies, 
down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the 
eternal right." 

The heroes whose names grace this " Roll of 
Honor " attested their devotion to the cause of 
human liberty by the greatest sacrifice known to 
mankind. 

One, rich in the inheritance of family eminence 
and gifted in the arts of war and peace, rose from 
the command of a company to the command of a 
brigade. 

Of the " Honorably Discharged," thirteen gave 
proof of their valor by wounds received on the fields 
of battle; sixteen were discharged for disability in- 
curred in the service. One,t bearing a Captain's 
commission, was promoted by brevet to the rank of 
Major for wounds received and daring deeds per- 
formed in the face of the enemy at the siege of 
Petersburg. 

Three whose names add lustre to these rolls were 
of a band of seven brothers — sons of a patriot father, 



Chester Monument 55 

of Chester, all of whom in the flower of life, for- 
saking the loves of home for the higher love of coun- 
try, among the earliest took their places in the ranks 
of the Union army. 

The military service of these seven volunteers 
— these seven brothers — is recorded on the historic 
army-rolls of the Government, where it will remain 
forever. 

It stands there unrivalled for family devotion to 
the Nation's cause. 

It stands conspicuous for exceptional merit, in 
that they bore far more than their proportionate 
share of the burdens of the war; conspicuous again, 
because of the intrinsic heroism with which they 
bore these burdens, as if it were one heart that beat 
and one arm that struck the blow; and not less so, 
because of the irreparable loss of life and manly 
strength which they incurred and the bodily angin?h 
endured. 

One was killed outright while leading his com- 
pany in the fatal assault upon the ramparts of Fort 
Wagner, and one on the battle-line at Cedar Moun- 
tain; one was discharged at the expiration of his 
term of service, bearing wounds inflicted by the 
enemy at the the battle of Petersburg still fresh upon 
him; two surrendered up lives of pain and suffer- 
ing in hospitals, at Port Hudson and Morris Island, 
more dreaded by the soldier than death on the battle- 



56 Chester Monument 

field — leaving the surviving remnant of the noble 
band broken and war-worn for life. 

In a word, they dedicated their lives to the 
public service on fields of war, that the Nation 
they loved and honored might be preserved 
and free. 

Who shall weave a laurel wreath worthy to 
crown the brow of such a brotherhood? J 

Of the men whose names appear upon these tab- 
lets, many were freeholders and the heads of fami- 
lies; some were of the learned professions; some 
were engaged in trades and the mechanic arts; all 
were enlisted in some honorable industry of the land. 
Best of all, they thoroughly understood the prin- 
ciples of the Government and the full meaning of the 
cause for which they fought, and with that abiding 
faith which springs from the love of home and coun- 
try each one carried out to the letter his contract 
with the Government. 

What an honor to the town they represented, 
with its population of less than twelve hundred 
people, is this array of Union volunteers, exceeding 
in number a full one-third of its voting power I 

No war ever taxed the valor and the fibre of men 
like this war. 

Some one of these heroes was identified with a 
regiment of New Hampshire on every battle-field 
from the first Bull Run to the final surrender 



Chester Monument 57 

at Appomattox. Two of them, one for a short term 
and the other throughout the war, served on battle- 
ships that were a part of the Atlantic Squadron, 
engaged in maintaining the blockade of Southern 
ports, from the mouth of the Potomac to the Rio 
Grande. 

I shall not do injustice to the memory of the 
beloved and gallant Colonel who fell at Fort Fisher 
or to any other of these heroes if I call up for special 
mention from the " Roll of Honor " the name of 
Arthur S. Nichols. 

He was not known to me and he was not known 
to fame; he was a private soldier in the Second New 
Hampshire; but I can measure the intensity of his 
patriotism by his enlistment in response to the first 
call made by Lincoln for volunteers to serve three 
years and by the peculiarly tender ties that bound 
him to his home. 

I can judge of his valor by the glorious record 
of the regiment whose badge he wore and in whose 
ranks he served. 

He was the only one of these heroes whom the 
fortunes of war brought to the battle-field of Gettys- 
burg, where, throughout those three Summer days of 
deadly conflict, in 1863, forty thousand men, friend 
and foe, were killed or wounded, and where the 
Rebellion received its death-blow and the Ameri- 
can Union was made one and inseparable — a decisive 



58 Chester Monument 

victory that thrilled the great heart of the North 
with joy and gratitude and that rung the bells in 
every tower of human liberty throughout the world. 

It was on the evening of the second day, during 
the encounter of Longstreet's veteran forces with our 
Third Army Corps under Sickles, at the peach-or- 
chard, that this brave man, somewhere within the 
envelopment of this terrible conflict in which the 
officers and men of the Second New Hampshire did 
the work of demigods, sacrificing then and there in 
their country's cause more than one-half their 
number in dead and wounded, was overpowered, 
with other Union soldiers, and made a prisoner 
of war. 

The precious offerings of human life that this 
State gave that afternoon on the gory fields where 
her Second and Fifth Regiments fought in defence 
of the Union, and the agonies and privations he en- 
dured for twelve long months in the prison-dens of 
Andersonville and his pathetic death there amidst 
hostile strangers, typify to us to-day what it cost to 
save this Nation's life and make it free. 

The proudest monument that Europe boasts is 
the Bavarian Lion which surmounts the summit on 
the field of Waterloo. It was placed there by the 
mailed hand of kings and royalty, to symbolize their 
cause and the victory won by their allied armies. 

Our heroic monuments rise into the heavens as 



Chester Monument 59 

symbols of the sovereignty and the victories of the 
American people. We build them to the honor of 
the private soldier as well as to the honor of the 
commanding officer. They are all Freedom's monu- 
ments. 

The one we dedicate to-day follows in its place 
in our immortal line of heroic commemoration. 

And, as I stand here and gaze upon this ideal 
soldier of the Union army, chiselled in native gran- 
ite, it seems to quicken into life and to breathe the 
spirit of the great national anthems of human liberty. 
It seems to point with confidence to the future. It 
seems to speak to us and to tell the story of the war, 
and what these heroes did to give the Government 
of the fathers the victory. 

Let it remain here, then, in the faithful keeping 
of the loving hearts and strong arms of the people 
of this staid, old New England town; and in each 
of the coming years let them repair to this hallowed 
spot and deck its manly form with the emblem of 
our nationality, and around the firm base upon 
which it stands let them place the sweetest flowers 
that the Spring-time brings. 

Spirit that made these heroes dare 
To die, or leave their children free, 

Bid time and nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 



60 Chester Monument 



NOTES 



* John Crawford, James Rankin, William Lock, Anthy Somb. Stick- 
ney, Samuel Blunt, Edmund Stickney, William Tolford, David Wether- 
spoon, Daniel Greenough, Peter Aiken, Robert M'^Kinley, John Grimes, 
Matthew Forsaith, Jr., Matthew Templeton, Edward Robie, William 
Underhill, Edward Robie, Joseph Dearborn, Archibald MaKafee, David 
Crage, John Webster, John Underhill, Nathan Morse, James Pearce, 
Sam'. Emerson, William White, Henry Moore, Nathan Pitts, Stephen 
Morse, James Dunlap, Joseph Linn, Nathan Webster, Jr., Daniel Webster, 
John Hasseltine, Moses Hills, Peter Dearborn, Stephen Dearborn, Peter 
Hasseltine, Jonathan Hall, Nathaniel Blasdall, Adam Wilson, Ebenezer 
Basford, Stephen Lufkin, Benjamin True, Robert Calfe, Samu^' Hassel- 
tine, Jasiel Harriman, Simon Bayley, Ebenezer Townsend, Moses Under- 
hill, Junior, Nathaniel Glidden, Stephen Hills, Wilks West, Richard Has- 
eltine, Caleb Hall, Jonathan Dearborn, Wells Chase, David Foss, Moody 
Chase, Isaac Blasdel, Stephen Merril, Josiah Hall, Alex. Weatherspoon, 
Pearson Richardson, Robert Craige, Samuel Kinsmand, James Aiken, 
Sam' Wilson, Bracket Towl, John Knowles, Anthony Towl, John 
Knowles, Jun'., Benjamin Melvin, Nathan Knowles, Parker Carr, 
Joshua Prescott, Ezekiel Morse, Joseph Long, David Currier, James Wil- 
son, Robert Rowe, Nathan Webster, John Dearborn, James Waddell, 
Jethro Colby, Amos Merril, William M'^Master, Josiah Bradley, Benj" 
Hills, Francis Towle, Samuel Hills, Jacob Hills, Ezekiel Worthen, 
Thomas Haseltine, John Shackford, Jun., Benjamin Hasekinc, Aaron 
Townsend, Jabez Hoit, Theod' Shackford, Benjamin Fuller, Daniel Rich- 
ardson, Samuel Jones, Moses Richardson, John Tolford, Isaac Forse, 
Hugh Tolford, Isaac Forse, Jr., John Robie, Jonathan Forsaith, Gideon 
Rowell, Thomas Wason, John Coulby, Rob' Wilson, Samuel Rowel, 
Will" Wilson, Samuel Forster, James Wason, Henry Hall, Charles 
Moore, Peter Hall, Samuel Moore, Sam' Jacks, David Fuller, Simon 
Berry, Benjamin Hoyt, Thomas Berry, John Hoyt, John Willson, Joseph 
McClellan, James Shirlee, Stephen Marden, Hugh Shirley, John Pain, 
William Shirlee, Joseph Knowles, Sam' Robie, Amos Pain, James Rich- 
ardson, Nathan Norton, Ebenezer Dearborn, Samuel Brown, John Gross, 
William Brown, Mark Carr, William Gilchrist, Thomas Fowler, Junior, 
Abram Sargent, James Wetherspoon, Wintrup Sargent, Daniel Wether- 



Chester Monument 61 

spoon, John Karr, Mansfield McAfee, William Mills, Samuel Aiken, 
Robert Grahams, Robert Patten, John Grimes, Samuel Crombey, John 
Mills, William Miller, Nath' Sweetzer, Hugh Miller, Samuel M'Ferson, 
Thomas M'^Master, Robert Dickey, William Gilchrist, Parker Morse, 
David Dickey, Josiah Morse, Robert Dinsmore, Edmund Sleeper, Benja- 
min Pierce, Joseph Morse, Samuel Pierce, Joseph Blanchard, Barnard 
Bricket, Abner Hills, Joseph Hills, Jabez French, David Underhill, Isaac 
Hills, Jonathan Emery, James Randall, Hezekiah Underhill, John Lain, 
Jonathan Underhill, Daniel Dolbeer, Isaac Towle, John Butterfield, John 
Orr, John Lane, Jr. , John Burley, Jonathan Norton, Joseph Hall, Joseph 
Norton, Joseph Clark, Jonathan Berry, Edward Presson, Joseph Smith, 
Cornelius Morgan, John Sevi, Samuel Worthen, Ellet Berry, Edmund 
Elliot, Benja. Hills, Paul Healey, David Richardson, Moses Underhill, 
Bradbury Carr, Jacob Perley, Joseph Carr, James Hidden, Charles Moore, 
Junior, Samuel Davis, Benj. Currier, William Brow^n, John Quimby, 
Francis Carr, Robert Gordon and Timothy Carr. 



•j- In Livermore's History of the Eighteenth New Hampshire Volun- 
teers may be found an interesting account, furnished by Major William S. 
Greenough, of a visit of President Lincoln, in the closing days of the 
Civil War, to the hospital at Cedar Point, then crowded with disabled 
heroes fresh from the battles before Petersburg, of whom the thrice 
wounded Captain Charles H. Houghton, of the 14th New York Heavy 
Artillery, among the bravest of the brave, was the central figure. It says: 

** On the night of the 6th of April, there came a serious crisis in 
Houghton's case through a secondary hemorrhage of an artery of the am- 
putated limb. Surgeons and nurses worked until daylight to assuage the 
flowing life-blood. All in the ward were deeply interested, and there was 
many a sigh of relief from his companions when, in the early morning, 
word went down the line of cots that the artery had been ' taken up,' and 
there was yet ground for hope. About nine o'clock of the following fore- 
noon the door — which I lay facing — opened, and from the surgeon 
in charge of the corps hospital — Dr. McDonald — came the command, 
'Attention: the President of the United States.' To myself, and prob- 
ably to most of us, this was unexpected, for we had not known that 
President Lincoln had been visiting the army. 

" Raising my eyes to the doorway, I had my first sight of the Presi- 



62 Chester Monument 

dent, and it was not an impressive one! His clothes were travel-stained, 
ill fitting, and very dusty; his hat was an immensely exaggerated type of 
the * stove-pipe ' variety; his neckwear was awry, and his face showed 
pressing need of the services of a barber. In short, his whole appearance 
seemed to justify the caricaturists of those days in their worst cartoons. 

" Unescorted, except by the surgeon, the President, bowing his tall 
form to enter the low doorway, stepped in, turned a step or two to the 
right and, tenderly placing his hand on Houghton's forehead, stood for an 
instant looking into his face; then, bending down to the low cot, — as a 
mother would to her child, — he kissed Houghton's white cheek. 

" In voice so tender and so low that only my near proximity en- 
abled me to hear, he began to talk to him, telling him how he had heard 
from Dr. McDonald all the story of his bravery in battle, his heroic fight 
for life and quiet cheerfulness in hospital, and of the sad happening of the 
night. 

*' Poor Houghton could only reply with faint smiles and whispers 
that were too low to reach my ears, but Mr. Lincoln heard, and a smile 
came to his grave face. Turning to the surgeon the President asked to be 
shown the major's wounds, especially the amputated limb. Dr. Mc- 
Donald tried to dissuade him by saying the sight, especially after what had 
just taken place, would be too shocking. But the President insisted, 
turned down the light coverings, and took a hasty look. Straightening up, 
with a deep groan of pain, and throwing up both his long arms, he cried 
out, 'Oh, this awful, awful war!' Then bending again to Houghton 
with the tears cutting wide furrows down his dust-stained cheeks, and 
with great sobs shaking him, he exclaimed, * Poor boy! Poor boy! You 
must live! You must!* This time the major's whispered answer, *I 
intend to, sir,' was just audible. (And here let me say in parenthesis — 
he did live, many long and useful years.) With a tender parting hand- 
stroke and a ' God bless you, my boy,' the President moved to the next 
cot in line, and to the next, and soon down the right and back on the left 
side of the ward, with a warm handclasp and a simple, kind, fatherly word 
for each one. Then he passed out the same door he had entered perhaps 
fifteen or twenty minutes before. 

" But for us it was a different place — we had seen there the soul of 
our chief." 



Chester Monument 63 

I WAR DEPARTMENT, 
The Military Secretary's Office, 

Washington, May 23, 1905. 
Mr. George C. Hazelton, 

Washington Loan and Trust Building, 
Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir: In response to your personal inquiry of yesterday relative to 
the seven sons of Eliphalet Brown of Chester, New Hampshire, who 
were in service during the Civil War, it being your desire to learn, for 
memorial purposes, who of them were killed or wounded during service, 
I have the honor to advise you that the official records show as follows: 

Otis D. Brown, Company K, ist Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, 
was wounded at the battle of Petersburg, Virginia, June 16, 1864. 

Warren E. F. Brown, Company K, 7th New Hampshire Infantry, 
was killed in action in the charge on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, July 
18, 1863. 

Walter G. Brown, Company I, 4th New Hampshire Infantry, died 
in hospital at Morris Island, South Carolina, September 16, 1863, of 
dysentery. 

Franklin A. Brown, Company I, 4th New Hampshire Infantry, was 
discharged from service on surgeon's certificate of disability, July 6, 1862, 
on account of chronic rheumatism. 

Frederick H. Brown, Company C, 2d Massachusetts Infantry, was 
killed in action at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, August 9, 1862. 

Marston L. Brown, Company K, 1 5th New Hampshire Infantry, 
was mustered out of service with his company August 13, 1863, 

Martin S. Brown, Company K, i 5th New Hampshire Infantry, died 
July 5, 1863, at Port Hudson, Louisiana, of fever. 

Except as before stated, no record has been found of any o( these 
men having been wounded while in service. 

Very respectfully, 

F. C. AiNSWORTH, 

T'ke Military Secretary. 



4^ 



Copy of resolution of Committee of Safety of New 
Hampshire of April 12, 1776, transmitting copy 
of resolution of the Continental Congress of March 
14, 1776, and proposed declaration, sent to the 
Selectmen of Chester, with the signatures thereto. 

(Reproduced in facsimile for the first time. The original is at 
Concord, N. H.) 



di^£ ^-LL.^.. 






COLONY OF NEW HMIPSIUR^ 

In COiMMITTEE of SAFETY, 

yipril i2ib, 1776. 

IN Order to carry the underwritten KliiiOLVE of the Hon'ble 
Continenta CONGRESS into Execution, You are rcquefted 
r^- ^"^^"^^^"^^^l^abov^/wenty One Years of .^ge(Lunatick5, 
Idiots, and Negroes excepted) to fign to the DECLAR^ TlOr^J oa 
this Paper ; and when fo done, to make Return hefcof, together 
v^Kh the Name or Names of all who Hiali refufc to figu , he fame 
to the GENERAL-ASSEMBLY, or Committee of Sa/etyonhU 

Cow. M. IVeare, Chairman, 

In CONGRESS, March 14th, 1776. 

UefohecirV^^^^ ^^ ^^ recommended to the feveral AffembJics, 
■ -■■ Conventions, and Councils, or Committees of Safe- 

ty ot the United Colonies, immediately to caufe all Perfons to be 
tTr ''';''"" their RefpediveColonies, who are notorio^y dif- 
affeaed to the Caufe of AMI.RICA, Or who have not affikted/ 
and refufe to aflociate, to defend by ARMS, the United Colonics 
Qgamft the Hoftilc Attempts of the Britilh Fleets and Armies-. 
(COPY) Extrr.a from the Minutes. 

Charles Thompfon, Set^ry, 

TN Confequence of the above Refolution, of th6 Hon. ContinenT 
tal CONGRESSy and to fhew our Determination in joining our 
American Brethren, in defending the Lives, Liberties, and Proper- 
tjcs of the Inhabitants of the UNITED COLONIES .- 

WE the Suh/cribers, do hereby folemnly engage, and promife, 
that we will, to the utmoft of our Power, at the Rifqueofour 
Lives and Fortunes, with ARMS, oppofe the Hoftile Proceedings 

y^UL,UNIES% 






<^) 






/^^ 



a^yu^ 









^J^'^-i^r^^y^.^,^ 











^^^^^^^(J-^ 







J„^ AK^-^f 








-6/^ 



'"'"'^^ d3<K^.. 








cf0yht^ 




}Js<^ 








l/rhzJi^H^ ^^fpfe^f^ 









^C\ /^ /7^ 








aO^^ 


















/ 3a 








c$^^^<^S^e<^^^ 











Colonel Hosley: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I now take pleasure in presenting George Sher- 
man West, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, 
who will present the monument to the members of 
the Grand Army for dedication. 



65 



>& 



George Sherman West: 

Members of the Grand Army : 

I have been authorized at this time to accept this 
memorial and to request you to dedicate it to the 
noble purpose for which it has been erected. 



67 



^ 



Colonel Henry O. Kent: 

Mr. Chairman of the Board of Selectmen: 

In the name of my comrades of the Department 
of New Hampshire, I thank you and those you 
represent for this memorial. 



Dedication of the monument by Henry O. Kent. 
(See " Introduction," p. ii.) 



69 



>fe 



Colonel Hosley: 

We have not the Governor with us to-day, but 
he has sent a representative, and I now take pleasure 
in introducing the Hon. John C. Linehan, of Con- 
cord, N. H. 



71 



>fe 



Hon. John C. Linehan : 

Mr. Chairman, Comrades and Friends: 

As announced by your President, I am here to- 
day as the representative of one whom you all honor 
and respect, His Excellency, Governor Bachelder, 
of New Hampshire. 

In his behalf, I desire to tender to you, the sons 
and daughters of the historic town of Chester, to the 
comrades of the Departments of New Hampshire 
and Massachusetts Grand Army of the Republic, 
to the honored President of the Day, Comrade Hos- 
ley, who has done so much to make this occasion a 
success, to the gallant veteran of the Civil War, 
Comrade James Tanner, and his wife, and to all 
others a most cordial and hearty welcome to the old 
Granite State. 

With you, I have enjoyed the address of the 
speaker of the day, Mr. Hazelton, and feel that I 
can say truthfully that, from my stand-point, it is 
one of the best, as well as one of the broadest, I have 
thus far heard on any similar occasion. When he 
said that we in New Hampshire are descended from 
three great races, the English, the Irish and the 
Scotch, he made a concession to the Irish race not 

73 



74 Chester Monument 

found elsewhere outside of the provincial papers of 
New Hampshire; and, as a native of Ireland, I as- 
sure him his words will be appreciated by those of 
that race who are versed in the early history of the 
Province and the State. 

In the dedication of this monument as a me- 
morial to the men and boys from Chester who fought 
and who died in the war to preserve the Union, you 
have done a work that will live long after the most 
of us are forgotten. A pleasing feature about it is 
that from base to apex it is constructed of our own 
New Hampshire granite, so emblematic of the State. 

Again I give you all a cordial welcome, and trust 
when you leave for your homes you will take with 
you none but pleasing memories of Chester's " Old 
Home Day " for 1904. 



Colonel Hosley: 

We have the United States Government repre- 
sented here to-day. I take pleasure in introducing 
Senator Henry E. Burnham, of Manchester, N. H. 



75 



^ 



Hon. Henry E. Burnham: 

Veterans of the Grand Army, Fellow Citizens and 
Friends: 

To-day a grateful and honored town, assisted by 
the Grand Army of the Republic, dedicates with 
impressive ceremonies an enduring monument to 
the memory of her heroic sons, the brave one hun- 
dred and six who went forth to save their imperilled 
country in the gloomy night of civil war. 

Happily the day so wisely chosen for this service 
is associated with the home-coming of the sons and 
daughters of this favored town. 

From far and near they have come, each anxious 
to join with those who have remained at the old 
homestead in paying tribute to the men whose patri- 
otism and valorous deeds have crowned with death- 
less honor their much-loved native town. 

Who were these men whose names are now upon 
the lips of all? They were born here, young men 
with hopes that kindled in their hearts the love of 
life and kindred, with ambitions that would lead 
them on and up to success and honor in the paths 
of peace. They left their homes and exchanged the 

77 



78 Chester Monument 

warm grasp they gave to loved ones for the cold 
clutch of steel, the sword, the gun, the awful en- 
ginery of war. 

They went out from the embrace of love, some 
into the embrace of death, all into the dark un- 
known, into the blackest gloom that ever yet had en- 
shrouded this fair land; they marched in Summer's 
heat and Winter's cold, and in the angry storm; they 
slept with only the stars or the threatening clouds 
above them; they suffered in hospital and prison-pen 
with cruel pain and anguish; they climbed the crim- 
son ridge of battle and fought on gory fields where 
Death was king; they triumphed at last and they 
laid anew the foundations of the Republic, with no 
stone stained or black, but all as pure and spotless 
as the morning light, binding together each and ev- 
ery part with bands that no storm can rend asunder 
nor the ravages of Time destroy. 

Nothing can add to or detract from the undying 
glory and honor of the Union soldiers. Their past 
is secure. No statue, however reared or crowned, 
no monument, however broad its base or however 
far it may tower above the clouds, can make more 
glorious or enduring the memory of their deeds. 
But the living, impressed by a heaven-born sense of 
gratitude, would pay them tribute and in town and 
city would rear the sculptured marble, the chiselled 
granite and the lettered bronze. Imperishable 



Chester Monument 79 

fame! When material things fashioned by man 
have lost their form and crumbled into dust, yet will 
the achievements of these heroic men live on through 
the unbounded reach of time. 

For the good deed through the ages, 

Living in historic pages, 

Brighter grows and gleams immortal. 

Here, as to some sacred shrine, the living of to- 
day, their children and their children's children will 
come and gaze with rapt and impassioned look upon 
this noble monument, from whose statue will breathe 
forth, as from a thing of life, the mystic spell that 
kindles into being a lofty and self-sacrificing patri- 
otism, the noblest sentiment of mankind. 

Here, too, will come those who inherit the 
patriotic blood of the men whose names are written 
upon these tablets of bronze, and in their loving 
hearts will be cherished a grateful appreciation of 
what this town and her citizens have done in honor 
of her patriots, living and dead. 

It needed only such deeds, and the men whose 
names are inscribed upon this " Roll of Honor," to 
make complete the record of Chester's great services 
to the State and Nation. Here has been found from 
her earliest history a nobility of character and worth 
seldom equalled and nowhere surpassed. From her 
families of wide renown have gone forth men who 



80 Chester Monument 

have honored the loftiest stations in the service of 
our Government. 

The spirit and patriotism of the great North in 
the Civil War were nowhere better illustrated than 
in this historic town. Among her brave soldiers, all 
native-born, all bearing names that are precious in 
your hearts to-day, one may be mentioned first. He 
was a type of the young manhood that was sacri- 
ficed upon our country's altar during the war — 
brave, noble, patriotic son of Chester. He re- 
sponded to the first call to arms. Wounded again 
and again in battle, he fell at last upon the crimson 
ramparts of Fort Fisher; and, when his life-blood 
was fast ebbing away, he prayed that he might live 
to see the colors of his gallant Fourth New Hamp- 
shire float in triumph over the captured fort. His 
dying wish was gratified, and then, his last sacrifice 
made, his life-work done. General Louis Bell joined 
his comrades on the farther shore. 

Lives like this have reflected priceless honor 
upon town and State and Nation, and have enriched 
and glorified the annals of mankind. 

How best can we respond to the lessons of this 
hour? How best can we obey the voices that seem 
to come to us to-day from the soldiers' graves at home 
and in the far Southland? How best perform our 
duty in the presence of the still-surviving maimed 
and suffering veterans of that great war? 



Chester Monument 81 

They gave to us, and to generations yet to come, 
the glorious heritage of a restored Union. They 
placed again upon our unconquered flag the stars 
whose quenchless light will grow brighter with the 
lapse of years. They removed forever from our 
land the curse of human thraldom and made pos- 
sible that mighty progress of the Republic which 
has continued until its homes are upon the hillsides, 
the valleys, the prairies and the mountains from the 
Atlantic to the golden shores of the Pacific, and until 
our flag, now respected and honored everywhere at 
home and abroad, floats over the tropical islands of 
distant seas. 

Let us, as we would honor the memory of our 
dead and pay tribute to our living heroes, keep in- 
violate and undiminished the heritage their valor 
gave us I Let us preserve in all its force and vigor 
the old Constitution and those Amendments that 
were written by the blood of martyrs in the cause of 
Liberty and Union! Let us make our country still 
greater and grander in all that most conduces to her 
permanency, her strength and her progress; and let 
us preserve our institutions and our form of govern- 
ment as a blessing to all our people and an example 
for all the nations of the earth! 

Thus will we do our part in serving the cause 
and the Republic for which so much precious blood 
was shed and so much treasure freely given in the 



82 Chester Monument 

War of 1861-65; and thus will we profit by the les- 
sons that come to us from this occasion and from that 
silent, yet eloquent monument which has to-day been 
dedicated to the memory of the Union soldiers of 
the town of Chester. 



Colonel Hosley: 

We have with us another New Hampshire boy, 
one whose parents and grandparents were natives of 
Chester and whose father was a member of a New 
Hampshire regiment. I now introduce the Hon. 
Henry F. Hollis, of Concord, N. H. 



83 



I& 



Hon. Henry F. Hollis: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen and Friends: 

It is not a matter of great consequence, perhaps, 
but I wish to make one correction in regard to the 
introduction by your chairman. My father is not a 
native of Chester. If he were, I should find it diffi- 
cult to explain why his name is not in the roll of 
honor upon this monument. As a matter of fact, he 
was not a member of a New Hampshire regiment, 
but he was enrolled in the 45th and 56th Massachu- 
setts regiments, and served honorably throughout the 
Civil War. 

Referring now to the exercises of the day, we find 
it difficult to realize that a century has grown old and 
died, a new century has been born, forty years have 
well-nigh passed since the close of the conflict which 
proved the bonds of American union to be free from 
flaw and forged for all eternity. In twoscore years, 
old men have died, young men have aged, children 
have become grandfathers and new-born babes have 
grown to full maturity. The progress of mankind 
has kept pace with the progress of the years. 

We have reared upon this spot a monument to 
our honored dead. It can raise no thrill of grati- 

85 



86 Chester Monument 

tude in the breasts of those whose names adorn its 
shaft. It can testify no more to those surviving 
heroes who honor us by their presence here to-day 
than we can testify by spoken word. It is not in- 
tended as a reward for past services, or an induce- 
ment for future patriotism. It pays no debt, it meets 
no obligation to others. If there be a debt which 
it discharges, it is a debt which we owe ourselves. 

And that debt is a debt of sentiment. Disguise 
it as we may, we build monuments to our dead sol- 
diers to testify to ourselves and to our children our 
own appreciation of the finer qualities of human 
nature — a matter of pure sentiment. 

It is indeed a luxury to indulge a fancy for senti- 
ment, to make occasionally something superfluous, 
something that is not strictly required, something ac- 
tually foolish in the eyes of many, like a beautiful 
library, a memorial church, or even an " Old Home 
Day " celebration. But sentiment has its part, and 
a very important part in the human breast. 

There is, for example, close by our State House 
in Concord a magnificent building of granite and 
marble, more sumptuous and ostentatious perhaps 
than is required by a State Library. But to every 
citizen of New Hampshire who enters it, there 
comes a sense of pride and decency and self-respect 
which repays a hundredfold his particular share of 
the taxes that building has cost. 



Chester Monument 87 

And so of " Old Home Day." If some can find 
a material recompense in the dollars to be earned 
by selling land for homes to returning sons and 
daughters, or by keeping summer boarders, well and 
good. But if " Old Home Day " brings no greater 
return than a cluster of fragrant memories, a hearty 
hand-shake, or a cordial welcome to the old farm- 
house, we are well repaid. 

And so with memorials like this. Children who 
play about a soldiers' monument will never forget 
that shaft. They may not know the names of those 
who lie beneath, nor the battles in which they fell, 
but the rough granite, the dusky bronze, or the grass 
about its base will furnish through life a permanent 
spot to revisit in person or in memory. 

But let us not forget that we owe one debt to our 
dead soldiers and to those living soldiers who are 
happily spared to us — a debt that cannot be paid by 
erecting monuments, or expressing thanks and grati- 
tude — a debt that can only be discharged by pre- 
serving the traditions of our fathers in all their an- 
cient purity and strength. No matter how strong 
and perfect the bonds of union may be, or how high 
the sentiments expressed in our statutes and Consti- 
tution, eternal vigilance is required to preserve our 
rights and our liberties. 

No war was ever fought which could not have 
been avoided by wise and patriotic statesmen, and 



88 Chester Monument 

I have heard it said that there would never be a 
war if those who brought it on were obliged to carry 
the muskets. It is always possible that a trivial act 
by President, Governor, Congress or Legislature 
may incite or avert a mighty conflict. 

How then can we better discharge our debt to 
those who have helped preserve the Union in the 
past than by taking an earnest, honest, active and 
personal interest in our duties as citizens? Shame 
to the man who is too busy to take an interest in the 
politics of his town. State and Nation, and more 
shame to him who feels that politics is a dirty busi- 
ness, beneath his dignity and unworthy of his no- 
tice. Politics is now, and ever will be, just as good 
or just as bad as the men who dominate it. 

And so long as any man feels himself too good or 
too fastidious to engage in politics, and waits for the 
character of politicians to improve before he does 
his part to preserve the liberties of the Constitution 
and transmit them untarnished to future generations, 
so long has he failed to discharge his duty to his 
country, and pay his debt to those soldiers, who died 
that their country might live. 



Colonel Hosley: 

I now introduce the Judge Advocate General of 
the Grand Army of the Republic, Comrade James 
Tanner, of Washington, D. C. 



89 



«& 



James Tanner: 

Mr. Chairman, Veterans, Ladies of the Relief 
Corps, One and All: 

These have been great days of late for the sur- 
viving veterans of the Union army. We have been 
almost swallowed up by the kindness of the great 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To our own 
amazement, where we had expected that with ad- 
vancing years there would come a great diminution 
in our ranks in point of attendance, we found 
twenty-seven thousand of the old comrades marching 
through the streets of Boston. The people turned 
out, it seemed, no less than a million, and from their 
eyes, and by the expression that found voice at their 
hands and through their throats, there came to us 
the welcome assurance that the day had not yet come 
for us to be forgotten. 

Now, in addition to all that, I and a few 
others are privileged to take part in this ceremony 
of to-day, and to bow with you in reverence before 
this beautiful monument erected in memory of the 
citizen-soldiery of Chester, who have served our 
Nation so well, so many of whom have gone to their 
last resting-place. This is the first time in my life 

91 



92 Chester Monument 

that I have been privileged to be within the confines 
of your town, but already my mind is made up on one 
point, and I desire to say to you that if my parents 
had consulted with me on that important matter, I 
too would have been born in Chester. 

In the few moments which time will permit me 
to occupy, I want to say to you that, though I come 
from the old Empire State, I did not have to wait 
to come to New Hampshire to form an acquaintance 
with your sons. 

On every battle-field I trod, I saw your boys 
somewhere down the line, and we never felt alarm 
about the representatives of the old Granite State, for 
they stood as firm as their native hills. One thought 
I would put out to you to-day with great earnestness. 
The dead whose names are commemorated on this 
shaft have made their record, and what we may say 
or do here is of no moment to them. We are not so 
much honoring them as we are honoring ourselves, 
and while we are performing no service material to 
them, we are performing a service material to the 
present and future generations. 

We are too much apt when we come to consider 
the greatness of our country to get out our mental 
telescope and look half-way or clear across the con- 
tment before we discern its heroes. You citizens of 
Chester do not have to go across the continent to look 
for your heroes, for right here there have gone in 



Chester Monument 93 

and out among you for years men who stood as 
brave and as true when cannon roared and rifles vol- 
leyed as are found anywhere in this great Nation. 
So I bow in reverence to the statue before us, com- 
memorating the heroes gone before, and I bow also 
to the living comrades of this little Post, and greet 
them as equally exalted heroes as the world has 
seen. I take a great deal of stock in what a friend 
of mine, the Rev. Dr. Deems, of New York, once 
said : *' If I have ever done anything that pleased you, 
tell me of it, if you will, while I am alive to hear 
it. Do not wait until my ears are deaf and my eyes 
closed, but tell me while I am alive, while my pulse 
throbs. I would give more for an ounce of tafify than 
for a pound of epitaphy." 

We can but epitomize that which is in our hearts 
to-day, for the day, the month, nor yet the year would 
be long enough to tell what the boys did in those 
grand old times. It would be no more of a shock 
to you to-day to have the news come that our coun- 
try had been attacked and needed our sons in defence, 
than it was to us in 1861 when the storm broke. Life 
looked as peaceful and promising to us in those days 
as it does to the young men of the present time. 
Hope welled as high in the hearts of us who were 
the young men of 1861, ambition fired our brains as 
thoroughly, business prospects looked as promising 
as they do to the young men of 1904. Aye! and you 



94 Chester Monument 

may take my word for it, woman's eye beamed upon 
us as kindly, her cheeks looked as rosy and her lips 
tasted as sweet in 1861 as they do to the young men 
of to-day. Then the blow fell, and the shotted guns 
that belched the wrath of secession at Sumter's walls 
rocked the Republic from centre to circumference. 

Then the cry of the stricken Nation was heard, 
voiced by the greatest American of all time, bar 
none, Abraham Lincoln. 

How magnificently her sons answered. From 
mountain-side and prairie, from valley and canon, 
from hamlet and city, from home, shop, counting- 
room and student's closet, they came. Their iron- 
shod heels rang in musical rhythm on the paved 
streets of our great cities as they pressed forward, 
making the air ring with their anthem. 

We are coming, Father Abraham, 
By the hundred thousand more, 

till at last they stood on the borderland, a belted line 
of blue, their fearless hearts a breastwork against 
which vainly beat the baffled hosts of the Southland. 
They trod two thousand fields of battle and skirmish, 
and four hundred thousand on battle-field, in hospi- 
tal and in prison-pen went down to death among the 
Nation's defenders. 

In this epitome, we bear in tender remembrance 



Chester Monument 95 

the great host of the maimed and diseased, the 
almost countless throng of widowed and fatherless. 

I may not under the circumstances surrounding 
us go very much into particulars to-day, but one 
thing I wish to say of these veterans who are here 
to-day with the badge and the button on — I can say 
for them as I can say for a particular class of our 
disabled. Circumstances and my own condition 
have naturally brought me largely in contact with 
men all over the Nation who have had the knife and 
the saw sever limbs from their bodies, but never 
have I met one who has voiced a single regret for 
what he did for the salvation of the Nation, fearful 
though the price was which they paid. 

For long years we were prone to find our illus- 
trations of great, heroic deeds in the annals of other 
nations. But ere the close of the national travail of 
1861-65, we found we could in our time match the 
great deeds of history. 

In our boyhood days, we had our blood stirred 
by the story of the charge of the Six Hundred at 
Balaklava. You recall the incident, which occurred 
in the war between Great Britain, France and 
Turkey joined against Russia. In the course of the 
contest, an order was delivered commanding a 
charge by the Six Hundred. Somebody had blun- 
dered — we shall never know who, as the officer who 
delivered the order was killed a few minutes later. 



96 Chester Monument 

At the head of the Six Hundred rode Lord Cardi- 
gan, the only scion of one of England's lordly lines. 
He knew that someone had blundered, but he was a 
soldier and he knew that a soldier's first duty is to 
obey orders. 

Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do or die. 

It is said that, as he finished reading the order, he 
drew his sword-belt one buckle-hole tighter and with 
a muttered, " Here goes the last of the Cardigans," 
gave the order to charge, and the Six Hundred rode 
to destruction and immortality. 

We can match it. Come with me, if you please, 
to Chancellorsville on that May day in 1863 when 
the line broke. On the far side of the break, there 
sat in their saddles a detachment of the 8th Penn- 
sylvania Cavalry, Major Peter Keenan in command. 
On the near side, a mass of artillery, unaligned. 
Yonder came the eagle of the Confederacy, Stone- 
wall Jackson. His quick eye grasped at once the 
vital importance of throwing his force into that gap. 
Had he succeeded in so doing, the results would have 
been disastrous to the Union cause to the last degree. 
Fortunately at this moment down our line came gal- 
loping that splendid soldier. General Alfred Pleas- 
onton. His eye was as quick as Jackson's. With- 



Chester Monument 97 

out halting, he cried out to the officer in command 
of the artillery: "Align those guns, double-shotted 
grape and canister, three-second fuses! " Then dash- 
ing along the break, he cried out, " Major Keenan, 
you must charge that column and hold it in check 
ten minutes or this field is lost!" Major Keenan 
was a cultured Irish gentleman. There awaited 
him in his distant home a fair young wife and loving 
children. In his dreams at night, as he lay in his 
tent or on the bosom of Mother Earth, " with his 
martial cloak around him," his soul had leaped for- 
ward to the sweet bye-and-bye when peace should 
have come and he would once more enfold them in 
loving embrace, but when Pleasonton gave him that 
order he knew that their reunion was for heaven 
only. 

Saluting, he responded, " General, we'll do it, 
and we'll die ! " He gave the word to charge, and 
led the way in the teeth of Jackson's ten thousand. 
Jackson thought it impossible that such a small body 
of cavalry would make such a charge unless they 
were to be strongly supported, and halting, threw 
his men into line of battle. His rifles volleyed, and 
Keenan's saddles were emptied. When we got our 
dead, Keenan's body had received nine bullets; his 
adjutant who rode by his side had received fifteen. 

But the field was saved by the sacrifice, for when 
Jackson pressed forward he was met by crushing 



98 Chester Monument 

volleys of grape and canister, and the Third Corps 
closed the gap. 

One more comparison. Take Napoleon at the 
bridge of Lodi. It was an absolute necessity to his 
cause to possess that bridge. Three times, the forces 
of France were repulsed. Napoleon realized that 
it were better for his fame in history that he should 
die there than to concede the battle lost and retire. 
So, seizing the standard of France, he cried out, '' En 
avant, mes braves!'' and under his leadership they 
captured the bridge, and the battle was won. 

There came another day, the 17th of September, 
1862, when for the Union cause a bridge was to be 
held. I refer to Antietam, where Burnside held the 
bridge though pressed to the last extremity. Aide 
after aide had galloped to McClellan, asking for 
support. McClellan turned to Fitz-John Porter, 
who sat in his saddle near him in command of the 
Sixth Corps, in reserve. Porter understood the un- 
spoken question and with a shake of his head an- 
swered, " It won't do. General. If we meet with 
disaster on this field, my corps is our only hope." 
So McClellan sent answer to Burnside as follows: 
" Tell General Burnside that I cannot send him a 
brigade, a regiment nor a man, but I charge him to 
hold the bridge to the last man, for with it he holds 
our success this day." 

That knightly New England soldier held the 



Chester Mo^iument 99 

bridge and saved the day, and I fear no contradic- 
tion from you when I assert that Burnside holding 
the bridge of Antietam, with no dream of dynasty 
or personal aggrandizement before him, but simply 
as a corner-stone of our great ark of liberty for all, 
was a grander character than Napoleon forcing the 
bridge of Lodi in pursuance of his own ambitions 
only. 

The fortunes of war sent me home early, but I 
went in early, September, 1861, a lad of seventeen, 
and I frankly say to you that I did not put down the 
Rebellion. I was privileged to be in at Yorktown, 
Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, seven days in front of 
Richmond, Malvern Hill, and then came the second 
battle of Bull Run, where Stonewall Jackson mus- 
tered me out with a piece of shell. Then after a 
while back to the old farm, where I lay gathering 
strength for the unusually strenuous battle of life 
which lay before me, and as time ran away, I had 
to hear much adverse criticism of our boys from lips 
that were hostile to our cause. That adverse criti- 
cism came from those who were with us, but not of 
us; men who were too cowardly to fight under any 
flag; who made themselves hoarse crying, "Why 
don't the army move? " and " On to Richmond," but 
who, when Father Abraham called through the 
channels of the draft, were to be found with the 
draft-list in one hand and a time-table of the 



100 Chester Monument 

nearest route to Canada in the other, ready to skip 
across the border, if they were among the chosen. 

For a long time, they constantly predicted the 
ultimate defeat of our cause, but finally, when it was 
evident that we were going to win, then they said, 
" Yes, you are wearing them out, but at what an 
awful price will victory be purchased." The ten- 
derest sentiment these people had to express regard- 
ing our veteran comrades was that, under the in- 
fluences of camp and march, bivouac and battle-field, 
it would prove that they had lost all memories of 
the sweet, pure teachings instilled in their youthful 
hearts as they had stood by mother's side, or gathered 
in the Sabbath-school and in the house of general 
worship. In short, they predicted that the army 
when it came home would come a rampant, disor- 
ganized mob of men, above all law and all restraint. 
No woman's honor was to be safe in all the land 
" when Johnny came marching home again." Oh, 
the infamy of it! 

Sir, inexpressibly proud as I am of the history 
which my comrades wrote with their bayonets' 
points, punctuated with their leaden periods during 
those four awful years, I am no less proud of the 
splendid manner in which they bore themselves 

When the battle-flags were furled 
And the war-drums ceased to beat. 



Chester Monument 101 

Many of you have stood on the sea-shore, when 
the waves came rolling in, almost mountainous in 
their height, seeming as if they would sweep every- 
thing to destruction before them. You have seen 
them at the dividing line break and sink back into 
the bosom of Mother Ocean. So our victorious 
legions came in the Spring days of 1865, dashed over 
the mountain wall of war, kissed the shores of peace 
and quietly assimilated themselves to all the ways 
of peaceful life. 

In an hour, so to speak, this Nation lost an army 
of over a million of men, but I assert that thereby 
and to an immeasurable degree, the forces of civili- 
zation and Christianity were enlarged. What 
course then was pursued by these heroes of a thou- 
sand fields? They returned to their old homes; 
they greeted again the parents who in the years of 
anxiety and woe had had their brows wrinkled and 
their eyes dimmed by the sorrow of their hearts. 
They went in great numbers each to the " girl he 
left behind him," and in loving embrace poured 
into her ear the old, old story, telling her that at her 
hands and before the altar of God alone could he 
receive the reward he demanded for his patriotic 
self-sacrifice. 

Then, to a tremendous extent, they spread them- 
selves out over the mighty West. They swept away 
the mirage which had obscured our vision and cre- 
ated the impression of a great American desert. 



102 Chester Monument 

Out of those Western vastnesses, they carved great 
States. They erected their modest homes, lighted 
the cheerful fires on hundreds of thousands of do- 
mestic hearthstones, builded new altars innumerable 
to the God above us and strengthened the Republic 
in countless ways. 

Young people of to-day, turn your thoughts in on 
your own hearts. Are you not inexpressibly proud 
of the great riches of this great Nation of ours to- 
day? — proud of its wealth and purity, proud of its 
standing among the nations of the world? Then 
remember that all you have you take as the heirs 
of the men in whose honor we are met to-day, heirs 
of them and their comrades. 

Let us be just. We had help, glorious help. 
There were innumerable men left behind who did 
just as patriotic service, service just as necessary as 
we did, without putting on a uniform. Besides this, 
joined to the favor of God, we had the sweetest 
and purest influences all our land contains — the 
prayers and the efforts of the womanhood of our 
land. For every tear they shed, for every word of 
encouragement they penned, for every effort they 
made, we thank and bless them to-day. 

You, right here in Chester, know full well what 
women can do, what they have done for this monu- 
ment. All honor to the women of the Relief Corps 
all the land over, and particularly the glorious Corps 
that has its habitation here in Chester. 



Chester Monument 103 

We have lived to see great things, my comrades. 
I have said many times in the years that lie behind 
us that, if ever the tocsin of war sounded again, and 
sons of ours were called to battle, we would find 
that they would go as bravely as their fathers went, 
and it has been proven in our time. We have been 
permitted to see our sons raise our flag higher than 
we ever were permitted to raise it and to carry it 
in honor ten thousand miles farther than we were 
privileged to do. 

It is a wonderful record yonder shaft commemo- 
rates, and which it will carry down to other genera- 
tions. Out of a total population of one thousand and 
a voting population of one hundred and ninety-four, 
one hundred and six of the citizens of this com- 
munity bade good-by to loved ones, put behind them 
the peace, serenity and joy of life amid these 
beautiful surroundings and went out to battle in 
behalf of our imperilled Nation. 

As we stand in the presence of this mute memo- 
rial to-day, it incites us to higher thoughts and 
nobler deeds and irresistibly draws us to larger and 
better views of life. 

Such will be the effect of this scene to-day as the 
story shall be passed along the corridors of time to 
the generations yet to come. And the manifold 
blessings shall rest with all. 



^ 



Colonel Hosley: 

We have with us another representative of the 
United States Government, one whose name is a 
household word. I now introduce to you the Hon. 
Cyrus A. Sulloway, the Member of Congress from 
this District. 



105 



>%< 



Hon. Cyrus A. Sulloway: 

Mr. Commander, Ladies, Soldiers and Friends: 

I am not here to-day to make a speech. I had 
an arrangement with Colonel Hosley that I was to 
come here to-day, but was not to talk. He said that 
you had plenty of orators; and I know you have. 
He said, " Cy, we want one ornament, and you must 
come." It was on these conditions that I am here 
to-day; and how could I resist so affecting an ap- 
peal? And, to tell the truth, I wanted to come. 

Now this beautiful monument and the eloquent 
and patriotic words we have listened to remind us 
of those terrible days when they who are dead, and 
you, their surviving comrades, left their homes — 
homes so dear that nothing but patriotic love of 
liberty could have torn them and you away. My 
God, what days those were: when mothers kissed 
their beardless boys good-bye; when husbands and 
fathers kissed the babe in the cradle farewell, and 
looked with tearful eyes into the eyes of the wife 
and mother and read the agony her heart contained 
as they parted — she to guard the home and care for 
the children — he to protect the flag and it may be to 
die struggling for liberty beneath its folds! 

107 



108 Chester Monument 

To-day, you dedicate this monument, consecrated 
to their memory, their valor and their sacrifices. It 
will be a monument inspiring patriotism, to be proud 
of for all time to come. I wish the names of the 
mothers and wives who gave their sons and their 
husbands might have been inscribed thereon also; 
but, unfortunately, such is not the custom. My 
friends, as long as letters last, as granite endures, 
years after mankind shall have forgotten where the 
most of us who participate in the ceremonies to-day 
are buried, they who live after us with loving hands 
will plant flowers around this beautiful monument 
that you to-day dedicate, and their fragrant blos- 
soms will be moistened with tears of patriotic grati- 
tude, and they will give thanks to God that old 
Chester had so many sons and daughters ready to 
sacrifice all for country and liberty. 

I am a believer in an army and navy. No nation 
has a moral right to be without such. There are 
those who talk of disarmament and arbitration. I 
want to say to you that there is nothing in Holy 
Writ, nothing in the life or history of nations, to lead 
a thoughtful mind to any such conclusions. The 
advocates of disarmament forget that Christ said, 
speaking of war, pestilence and famine. " These 
things must needs be." They ever have and always 
will be until humanity is annihilated. Nations 
were born on fields where armed men met, where 



Chester Monument 109 

sabres clashed, bayonets glittered, rifles cracked and 
cannons thundered, and where heroes died on fields 
red with blood; and they passed out of existence in 
the same way. 

A nation that would disarm would be a nation 
of cowards inviting its own destruction. Sneak- 
thieves rob unlocked houses; only the boldest and 
most desperate burglars attack bank vaults. I 
believe we should increase our navy as rapidly as 
our revenue and our ship-yards will permit, and our 
army to at least one hundred thousand men. To do 
so, in my belief, is economy and an assurance of 
peace. One hundred well-equipped battle-ships will 
do more toward preserving peaceful relations with 
the nations of the earth than all the peace congresses 
could do if constantly in session until the end of time, 
and I would rather submit to such an armament to 
determine our rights than to all the crowned heads of 
the world. We should feel that as a Nation we were 
to have a fair trial and be very confident of the result. 

We have grown since the days of the Rebellion. 
To-day, it has been said here that we own possessions 
in all quarters of the globe. If you station one 
battle-ship at the Philippines, one at Cuba, one at 
Porto Rico, one at each end of the canal we are 
about to build, or, I ought to say, really are building, 
and one for every thousand miles of our sea-coast, 
we haven't battle-ships enough to go round. 



110 Chester Monument 

It is an insurance. It is a safety. There are no 
arbitrators that are equal to an army of a million 
men. 

When we are asked to arbitrate, I hope the men 
at the head of the Government will point to the army 
and navy and say, " There are my arbitrators; reason 
with them." In that way, there will be no doubt 
about the result. We cannot afford as a Nation to 
be without a nucleus of an army. To-day, we have 
only about fifty-six thousand men. 

Now, my friends, I know that you are weary. 
You have been stimulated by noble and patriotic 
sentiments that have sent the blood tingling in your 
veins. I know it has tingled down to my fingers, 
and sometimes I felt it down to my toes, as I have 
sat here and listened to the inspiring speakers of 
to-day; but, at the same time, I know that you weary. 
I want to thank you in closing for the invitation and 
for the opportunity to be here, and I congratulate 
you on the occasion that enables you to dedicate this 
beautiful monument to-day. 



Colonel Hosley: 

I take pleasure in introducing, at this time, Mrs. 
Maria E. Densmore, President of the Woman's 
Relief Corps of the Department of New Hampshire. 



Ill 



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Mrs. Maria E. Densmore: 

A Nation like ours will not soon forget the sol- 
diers who fought, suffered and died for their coun- 
try, and what more fitting memorial can we erect to 
them than such a monument as you dedicate here 
to-day, and each Memorial Day you will place the 
evergreen and floral tribute on this mound made 
sacred to their memory. 

It was my pleasure two years ago to visit Gettys- 
burg; it was an exceedingly interesting and enjoy- 
able, as well as a sad, visit. There, every few rods 
for miles, was a monument erected in memory of 
some noble officer. We saw monuments that 
marked the spots made historic by some notable 
event of the battle. The cemetery had its row after 
row of small stones that marked the resting places of 
unknown heroes. It was a good history-lesson, but 
one day was too short a time for its study. 

While we do honor to those who have fallen, let 
us not forget the living, but try and strew their path- 
way with as much sunshine as possible. 



113 



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Colonel Hosley: 

I now take pleasure in introducing Mrs. Louise 
S. Johnson, of Manchester, N. H., the past President 
of the Woman's Relief Corps, Department of New 
Hampshire. 



116 



^ 



Mrs, Louise S. Johnson: 

From the North and the South was heard the 
bugle call to arms. Chester's noble sons responded 
and went forth to battle for the right. We will not 
dwell upon those harrowing scenes from '6i to '65. 
Those years in all their wretchedness are known 
only to the defenders of the flag. We know that the 
battles were fought and the victories won. 

It was then that these veterans reared for them- 
selves a monument that shall last for all time, viz., 
a Republic, the Government of which is of the 
people, by the people and for the people — a Gov- 
ernment, the key-note of which is " One country, one 
language and one flag, with liberty and justice 
for all." 

It remains for us and for future generations to 
keep untarnished this monument. 

The auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic, the Woman's Relief Corps, is an important 
factor in educating the future citizens of our country. 

It is not the Corps' only task to carry cheer to 
some saddened home, to lighten the burden of the 
heavily laden, to perpetuate the memory of our 
heroic dead, but to keep the fires of patriotism 

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118 Chester Monument 

brightly burning. Through its efforts, patriotic 
teaching has been introduced in our public schools 
and flags float over our school houses. 

It is woman's hand that twines the wreath with 
which to crown the victorious heroes, thus teaching, 
by her example, the young to reverence those men 
who left to us so great a heritage. 

Such women are found in our Corps. Bell 
Corps, here in your midst, tells the story of what is 
being done by the patriotic women of our land. To- 
day this Corps unites with you. Veterans, in dedi- 
cating this beautiful monument to the memory of 
Chester's heroes. 

This shaft shall stand for ages, speaking to future 
generations of Chester's share in that great struggle 
for liberty. And, as we pass it by, let us pause for 
a moment and reflect upon our duty to those whose 
names are inscribed thereon — a duty we owe to our 
country, and to ourselves, that we may be worthy 
sons and daughters of the defenders of the Union, 
worthy of the sacred trust they have left us. 



Colonel Hosley: 

I wish to take this opportunity right now of 
thanking the Department of Massachusetts and its 
officers, who have come up here and joined hands 
with the comrades of New Hampshire to assist in 
the dedication of this monument. I thank you from 
the bottom of my heart. We have with them Abra- 
ham Lincoln Camp of Sons of Veterans of Charles- 
town. They are in command of Joseph Thayer. 



119 



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Colonel Hosley: 

Now, we have with us one more, a native of this 
town, born here, raised as a boy, and is a boy still, and 
younger than any of us. He will make the closing 
remarks to-day. I take great pleasure in introduc- 
ing the Hon. Gerry W. Hazelton, of Milwaukee, 
Wis., formerly a Representative in Congress from 
the Capital District of that State. 



121 



4^ 



Hon. Gerry W. Hazelton 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends: 

At this late hour, realizing that you are all weary, 
I should be very presumptuous to detain you with 
any extended remarks, and it is not my purpose to 
do so. 

This is a great and glorious day for Chester. 
There have been other days since the settlement of 
the town in 1719 of great local importance but no 
day which in its historical significance, in its rela- 
tion to great events, can be compared to this. It 
reaches back to the most momentous civil war in 
history, and projects itself on indefinitely into the 
unseen and untried future. 

It is a great pleasure to be present and to witness 
the exercises and to listen to the addresses which 
have been delivered here in our hearing. These 
addresses have been most felicitous and delightful, 
and this occasion, I am sure, will linger in our 
memories through all the years that are reserved 
to us. 

It will linger in the traditions of this community 

123 



124 Chester Monument 

when the youngest person present here shall have 
passed away, and then it will be gathered into the 
golden urn of history to be treasured forevermore. 

I would like to supplement what has been said 
about the town of Chester by another statement, that 
it may become part of the record of these services. 
Here is a rural township never containing more than 
eight hundred or one thousand people, never boast- 
ing of a manufactory of more importance than a 
saw-mill, never boasting of an institution of learning 
above the grade of a common school, and yet this 
town has furnished two Chief Justices of the Su- 
preme Court, three Governors and one Attorney- 
General of the State, three United States Senators, 
two Members of Congress, a consul for many years 
at Genoa, a clerk of the National House of Repre- 
sentatives for ten years, a First Assistant Secretary 
of the Treasury during three national administra- 
tions and ministers and doctors of divinity galore. 
I know of no town in New England or outside of it 
with such a record. 

It was a happy thought which led the Governor 
of the State to set aside a week during the Summer 
season and to define it as " Old Home Week " ; to in- 
vite those who were natives of the State to return and 
spend a few days in the haunts with which their early 
life was familiar. It was not necessary, however, 
for the Governor to invite me. I have been in the 



Chester Monument 125 

habit of coming back to my native town for 
an annual vacation for many years, and I never 
come without pleasure, and never go away with- 
out pain. 

I love to go back on the old farm where I grew 
up to early manhood. Every rod on that farm is 
familiar, and associated with memories that are 
sacred and imperishable. It is true, life was not so 
crowded with exciting events at that time as now. 
Telegraphs and telephones were unknown. Not a 
daily newspaper was ever seen in any of the rural 
communities, and in the cities their circulation was 
limited and the range of their information restricted 
within narrow limits. But there is much reason for 
claiming that the life of that period was just as en- 
joyable, homes just as happy and conceptions of duty 
just as high, as to-day; and I may add, with pardon- 
able pride and with the loyalty of a native of the 
town, that the fathers and mothers of those early 
days have never been excelled and never can be. 

But I must not detain you. God grant that the 
great Republic founded by the fathers and rescued 
from deadly peril by the sons — the Republic under 
whose proud flag we are assembled to-day — may 
endure through all the coming generations to illus- 
trate the beneficence of free institutions; to teach 
by example as well as precept the value of civic 
righteousness, and to inspire the nations of the earth 



126 Chester Monument 

with more exalted ideas of the true aims and objects 
of human government. 

So shall glory without end 

Scatter the clouds away, 

And on her name attend 

The hopes and benedictions of mankind. 



1 14 ISO? 



